LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Gl  FT    OF 

( 

Class 


ISRAEL: 

OR 

JACOB'S    NEW    NAME 


A  STUDY   BY 

EDWARD    PAYSON    VINING 

Showing   that    the    Meaning    of    the    Name 

And  the  Use  of  Cognate  Words 
Furnish    Several    Convincing    Proofs 

Of   the  Historicity  of 

The  Biblical  Record  Concerning  Him 

And  of  the   Early   Date   of 

The  Pentateuch 


Reprinted  from 

"WATCHWORD  and  TRUTH/' 


AMERICA   PRINTING  COMPANY 

8     DIX     PLACE,     BOSTON.     MASSACHUSETTS 

1908 


A 


"A  man  of  brutishness  does  not  see; 
And  a  dullard  does  not  discern; 
In  disturbers  sprouting  like  grass, 
"And  all  evil-doers  flourishing; 
That  [they  are]  to  be  silenced  unto 

eternity. 
But  Thou   art  on   high   forever,   O 

Lord : 

For,  lo,  Thy  foes,  O  Lord, 
For,  lo,  Thy  foes  shall  perish ; 
All  evil-doers  shall  be  scattered." 

Psalm  xcii,  6-9. 


PREFACE 


The  preparation  of  a  series  of  ar- 
ticles for  "Watchword  and  Truth" 
in  regard  to  the  nature  and  pur- 
poses of  prayer,  as  these  are  de- 
scribed in  the  Scriptures,  led  to  an 
examination  of  the  passage  ren- 
dered in  our  accepted  version  of 
the  Bible: 

"Thy  name  shall  be  called  no 
more  Jacob,  but  Israel :  for  as  a 
prince  hast  thou  power  with  Gocl 
and  with  men,  and  hast  prevailed." 

A  careful  study  of  the  exact 
meaning,  and  consequent  applica- 
bility, of  Jacob's  new  name  in- 
volved a  similar  examination  of. the 
use  and  force  of  the  cognate  He- 


iv  Preface 

brew  words  derived  from  its  char- 
acteristic root  SaR;  and  this  in  turn 
led  to  unexpected  discoveries,  of 
such  importance  that  it  seems  de- 
sirable to  make  them  known. 

Two  facts  are  evident  at  the  first 
glance  at  the  name;  these  being 
that  its  terminal  syllable  EL  is  the 
appellation  of  the  Divinity,  arid  that 
the  remainder  of  the  word  is  a  short^ 
ened  form  of  a  verb  in  what  is 
sometimes  improperly  called  the 
future  tense.  The  common  opinion, 
that  the  meaning  of  the  name  is 
"Warrior  of  God,"  is  therefore 
wholly  inadmissible ;  for  a  verb  can- 
not be  properly  translated  by  a 
noun.  It  is  true  that  some  eminent 
grammarians  have  invented  a  noun 
ISRaH  to  account  for  the  first  por- 
tion of  the  appellation;  and  to  this 
creation  of  their  fancy  they  have 
attributed  the  meaning  "Wa.irior  or 
soldier;"  but  this  was  merely  the 
result  of  an  effort  to  support  a  false 
rendering,  which  without  it  would 
have  stood  self-condemned.  The 


Preface  v 

truth  is,  that  no  such  noun  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Hebrew  language,  and 
that  there  is  no  reason  to  think  that 
the  alleged  word  ever  had  an  actual 
existence. 

Of  late  years  there  has,  therefore, 
been  a  tendency  to  admit  the  verbal 
force  of  the  first  two  syllables  of 
the  name;  but  this  has  been  accom- 
panied by  the  claim  that  the  pri- 
mary meaning  of  the  verb  is  "to 
war,"  from  which  it  has  been  soft- 
ened into  "to  contend,  or  to  strive" ; 
this  claim  being  supported  by  com- 
paring it  with  an  Arabic  word  of 
similar  form,  which  is  alleged  to 
have  the  latter  meaning.  This  was 
the  view  taken  by  our  recent  re- 
visers. 

The  fact  is,  however,  that  the 
two  verbs — Hebrew  and  Arabic — 
can  not  be  considered  cognate, 
without  a  violation  of  one  of  the 
most  fundamental  rules  of  philol- 
ogy; and  that  the  Arabic  word  in 
question  means  "to  wrangle,"  and 
is  not  in  any  way  applicable  to 


vi  Preface 

physical  strife.  The  Hebrew  verb, 
moreover,  has  in  it  no  thought  of 
warfare,  strife  or  contention  of  any 
kind. 

It  is  shown  in  the  course  of  this 
work,  that  its  primary  meaning  is 
"to  set  in  order,  or  to  arrange." 
The  usual  method  of  setting  a  body 
of  men  in  order  is  by  means  of  a 
command  given  by  their  recognized 
leader,  and  such  a  command  is  fre- 
quently described  in  the  English 
language  as  an  "order."  In  pre- 
cisely the  same  way,  the  Hebrew 
word  which  first  meant  "to  order" 
(that  is  to  say,  "to  set  in  order"), 
developed  the  secondary  meaning 
"to  order,"  that  is  to  say,  "to  com- 
mand." 

The  tense  of  the  verbal  portion 
of  Jacob's  new  name  regards  the 
action  as  continuing  or  recurring — 
and,  therefore,  as  not  brought  to  an 
end.  Hence,  it  is  frequently  em- 
ployed to  express  a  permanent  con- 
dition, existing  unchanged  through 
past,  present  and  future:  a  Hebrew 


Preface  vii 

verb  of  this  kind  is  therefore  prop- 
erly represented  by  its  correspond- 
ing English  verb  in  the  present 
tense.  Hence  the  plain  and  simple 
meaning  of  the  name  Israel  is 
"God  commands,"  or,  giving  the 
Jussive  force  to  the  shortened  form 
of  the  verb,  it  may  be  translated 
"Let  God  command." 

As  soon  as  the  true  force  of  this 
appellation  is  recognized,  it  at  once 
becomes  evident  that  this  was  the 
name  of  a  man,  formed  in  the  same 
way  as  some  forty  other  personal 
names ;  and  that  it  never  could  have 
become  the  designation  of  a  body 
of  people,  otherwise  than  through 
their  descent  from  an  ancestor  who 
was  so  called. 

This  fact  immediately  disposes 
of  the  skeptical  theory  that  the  his- 
tory of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob 
is  mythical,  and  that  no  such  men 
ever  existed. 

Moreover,  the  study  of  the  He- 
brew words  derived  from  the  root 
SaR,  which  appears  in  the  name 


viii  Preface 

I-SRa-EL,  led  to  the  discovery  that 
they  present  four  additional  proofs 
of  the  historicity  and  early  date  of 
the  Pentateuch. 

In  brief,  these  are  as  follows: 
First,  the  noun  SaR,  "Command- 
er," had  a  gradual  growth  of  mean- 
ing, and  was  used  in  Genesis  and 
the  first  chapters  of  Exodus  in  a 
sense  in  which  it  was  never  em- 
ployed after  the  days  of  Moses. 
Second :  the  corresponding  feminine 
noun  SaRaH  was  in  use  at  least  as 
early  as  the  times  of  Deborah;  but 
Genesis  has  an  archaic  form  SaRal, 
which  is  necessarily  much  older. 
Third,  the  demand  of  the  Semitic 
languages  for  triconsonantal  stems 
for  their  verbs  resulted  in  several 
different  methods  of  forming  such 
stems  from  biliteral  roots.  In  this 
case  three  different  forms  of  what 
is  essentially  the  same  verb  (for 
they  all  have  the  common  meaning 
"to  command")  were  developed 
from  the  root  SaR.  In  Genesis  we 
find  the  form  SaRaH  (similar  to 


Preface  ix 

that  of  the  feminine  noun),  which 
occurs  only  in  that  book,  except  for 
a  single  case,  in  which  Hosea 
quoted  the  word  from  Genesis,  and 
then,  fearing  it  would  not  be  under- 
stood by  the  people  for  whom  he 
wrote,  repeated  the  statement  in  the 
dialect  of  his  own  day,  using  the 
form  SWuR  as  its  equivalent.  This 
last-mentioned  form  seems  to  have 
been  peculiar  to  the  northern  king- 
dom ;  and  even  there  it  died  out  of 
use  soon  afterward;  so  that  thence- 
forth SaRaR  was  the  form  univer- 
sally employed.  He  who  in  the 
face  of  facts  like  these  contends 
that  the  Pentateuch,  or  any  of  the 
earlier  documents  from  which  it  is 
alleged  that  the  Book  of  Genesis 
was  compiled,  was  written  in 
Hosea's  country,  at  or  not  long1  oe- 
fore  his  times,  must  indeed  be  blind 
and  deaf  to  all  evidence.  Fourth, 
the  form  SaRaH  was  much  older 
than  SWuR;  yet  even  the  latter 
was  so  archaic  that  at  the  time  of 
the  return  from  Babylon  it  had  be- 


x  Preface 

come  entirely  obsolete,  and  the 
wisest  of  the  Hebrew  scholars  of 
that  time  did  not  understand  its 
meaning.  Hence,  in  each  case  of 
its  occurrence,  they  attributed  to  it 
a  different  force  from  that  which 
they  assigned  to  it  anywhere  else: 
with  the  result  that  two  important 
passages  of  the  Bible  have  been 
grossly  perverted  from  their  real 
meaning,  and  have  always  been 
most  dreadfully  mistranslated. 

It  is  to  the  exposition  of  the  true 
meaning  of  these  Biblical  state- 
ments that  the  closing  chapters  of 
this  little  book  are  devoted. 

The  method  herein  employed,  for 
determining  the  dates  to  which  the 
various  books  of  the  Bible  should 
be  attributed,  opens  up  a  new  field 
for  research;  and  the  important 
results  following  the  careful  study 
of  a  single  Hebrew  root  indicate 
that  a  complete  investigation  of  this 
nature  must  prove  very  fruitful. 

As  a  single  additional  example,  it 
may  be  noticed  that  the  verb  "to 


Preface  xi 

laugh"  (derisively  or  sportively) 
was  written  TzaChaQ  in  the  Pen- 
tateuch ;  that  in  the  Book  of  Judges 
it  was  once  given  that  form,  and 
once  was  written  SaChaQ ;  and  that 
this  latter  form  universally  pre- 
vailed thereafter. 

From  this  fact  the  conclusion  fol- 
lows, that  Isaac  was  given  his 
name  of  YiTzChaQ,  and  that  his 
history  was  written,  not  later  than 
the  time  of  the  Judges ;  since  at  any 
later  date  his  name  would  have  been 
spelled  YiSChaQ ;  a  form  in  which 
it  in  fact  appears  in  the  one  hundred 
and  fifth  Psalm,  in  Jeremiah  and  in 
Amos. 

For  detailed  proof  of  the  truth 
of  the  various  statements  herein 
made,  and  for  further  information 
upon  the  subject,  the  reader  is  re- 
ferred to  the  chapters  which  follow. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  Page 

I.  JACOB'S    CONVERSION       .        .  13 

II.  THE   TITLE   SAR       .        .        ,  32 

III.  THE  MYTHICAL  THEORY        .  47 
"  THE  MEANING  OF  THE  NAME  55 

IV.  THE  TITLE  IN  OTHER  TONGUES    65 
V.  THE  DATE  OF  GENESIS          .  82 

VI.  A  CHANGE  OF  LANGUAGE      .  98 

VII.  DAVID'S    CAPTIVES           .  117 

VIII.  THE   ORIGINAL    RECORD           .  133 

IX.  THE  WORK  OF  THE  CAPTIVES  151 

X.  JUSTICE   TO    DAVID           .        .  171 

EPILOGUE  .  .        .191 


ISRAEL: 

OR    JACOB'S    NEW    NAME 


CHAPTER  I. 
Jacob's  Conversion 


Up  to  the  time  that  Jacob 
crossed  the  river  Jabbok,  on  his 
hasty  flight  from  Paddan-aram  to 
his  own  native  land,  one  of  the  most 
distinctive  features  of  his  character 
was  a  lack  of  faith  in  God,  com- 
bined with  a  shrewd  cunning  in 
scheming  for  his  own  welfare,  re- 
gardless of  the  rights  of  others. 
Jehovah  had  assured  Rebekah  that, 
of  the  two  peoples  who  should  de- 
scend from  her  the  elder  should 
serve  the  younger;  but  this  promise 
was  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  either 
Jacob  or  his  mother ;  so  they  formed 


14  Jacobs  New  Name 

deep-laid  plots  to  obtain  for 
the  younger  son  the  rights  of  the 
first-born,  and  resorted,  not  only  to 
hardness  and  keenness  in  bargain- 
ing, but  also  to  deceit  and  false- 
hood. 

When  fleeing  from  his  father's 
home,  to  escape  from  his  brother's 
wrath,  Jehovah  appeared  to  him, 
and  promised  to  keep  him  whither- 
soever he  went;  but  this  again  did 
not  prevent  him  from  resorting  to 
cunning  devices  of  his  own  to  get 
the  best  of  his  father-in-law.  As 
this  resulted  in  alienation  of  heart, 
the  Lord  commanded  Jacob  to  re- 
turn to  his  native  land;  and  to  the 
promise  previously  given,  that  Ja- 
cob and  his  seed  should  possess  the 
land,  and  that  he  should  be  kept, 
the  further  assurance,  "I  will  be 
with  thee,"  was  added.  But  Ja- 
cob's heart  failed  him  as  he  drew 
toward  his  early  home,  and  his 
shrewdness  was  again  called  into 
play  as  a  means  of  appeasing 
Esau's  anger. 


Jacob's  Conversion  15 

First,  he  sent  messengers  to  re- 
port to  his  brother  that  he  was  re- 
turning rich,  and  desired  reconcil- 
iation; but  the  only  answer  he  re- 
ceived was  the  information  that 
Esau  was  coming  to  meet  him  with 
a  band  of  four  hundred  men.  He 
began  now  to  realize  that  his  bro- 
ther had  just  cause  for  resentment, 
and  that,  after  all,  it  was  God's 
blessing,  and  not  his  own  shrewd- 
ness, that  had  made  him  rich.  Yet 
the  mercy  which  had  been  shown 
to  him  in  the  past  did  not  lead  him 
to  rely  confidently  upon  God's 
promise  for  the  future ;  and,  great- 
ly afraid  and  distressed,  he  divid- 
ed his  people  and  possessions  into 
two  separate  companies,  so  that,  if 
one  was  smitten,  the  other  might 
escape.  Then  he  sent  Esau  large 
and  valuable  presents  of  the  ani- 
mals which  constituted  the  wealth 
of  that  time,  dividing  them  into  a 
number  of  droves,  and  sending 
them  forward  one  at  a  tinre,  with 
a  space  between  each  two  droves; 


16  Jacob's  New  Name 

hoping  that  the  repetition  of  one 
present  after  another  might  pla- 
cate his  brother. 

Yet  it  seems  evident  that  these 
plans  would  have  failed,  if  it  were 
not  for  God's  interposition.  The 
one  thing  that  finally  allayed 
Esau's  anger  appears,  beyond  all 
question,  to  have  been  Jacob's  crip- 
pled condition,  at  the  sight  of  which 
his  brother's  memory  abandoned 
all  recollection  off  chicanery,  and 
turned  back  to  the  times  when  the 
little  lad  named  Jacob,  the  weaker 
and  less  adventurous  of  the  twins, 
had  been  cared  for  and  protected 
from  harm  by  his  stronger  and  more 
active  brother.  Very  possibly  there 
was  a  remembrance  of  some  time 
in  their  youthful  days  when  little 
Jacob  had  limped,  because  of  a  tem- 
porary injury,  and  had  been  helped 
and  supported  by  his  brother. 

So,  as  Jacob  now  advanced,  "halt- 
ing upon  his  thigh,"  "Esau  ran  to 
meet  him,  and  embraced  him;  and 
they  wept." 


Jacob's  Conversion  17 

But  before  this  reconciliation 
could  be  brought  about,  it  was  ne- 
cessary that  Jacob  should  be  led 
to  give  up  his  old  self-will,  and 
should  surrender  completely  to  his 
God.  It  had  therefore  come  to  pass 
that,  at  the  time  when  he  had  first 
begun  to  realize  his  own  weakness 
and  unworthiness,  and  the  inade- 
quacy of  all  his  schemes ;  at  the 
•time  that  his  heart  was  filled  with 
the  most  anxious  foreboding  as  to 
his  future :  "Jacob  was  left  alone ; 
and  a  man  struggled  in  the  dust 
with  him  until  the  rising  of  the 
dawn.  And  he  saw  that  he  was  not 
able  for  him,  and  he  touched  the 
hollow  of  his  thigh ;  and  the  hollow 
of  Jacob's  thigh  shrank  away  in  his 
struggling  in  the  dust  with  him. 
And  he  said,  'Send  me  away,  for  the 
dawn  has  risen' ;  and  he  said,  'I  will 
not  send  thee  away,  except  thou 
bless  me.'  And  he  said  unto  him, 
'What  is  thy  name?'  And  he  said, 
'Jacob.'  And  he  said,  'Not  Jacob 
shall  they  name  be  called  hereafter, 


1 8  Jacob's  New  Name 

but  Israel;  for  thou  hast  command- 
ed with  God  and  with  men,  and 
hast  been  able.' " 

"And  Jacob  desired,  and  said, 
Tell,  pray,  thy  name.'  And  he  said, 
Wherefore  dost  thou  thus  desire 
for  my  name?  And  he  blessed  him 
there." 

"And  Jacob  called  the  name  of 
the  place  Peniel  (That  is,  The  face 
of  God') :  'For  I  have  seen  God 
face  to  face,  and  my  soul  has  been 
delivered!'" 

The  foregoing  is  an  exact,  word 
-for-word,  reproduction  of  the  He- 
brew record,  and  although  the  syn- 
tax is  Hebrew,  rather  than  English, 
yet  it  is  sufficiently  intelligible.  The 
difficulty  in  regard  to  expressing 
the  thought  in  smoother  and  more 
classical  English  is,  that  in  the  at- 
tempt so  to  do,  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  avoid  an  admixture  of 
a  human  element;  as  can  readily  be 
seen  by  examining  the  passage  in 
our  current  versions. 

The    most    important    differences 


Jacob's  Conversion  19 

have  been  italicized,  above;  and 
these  will  now  be  examined.  Let 
us  first  take  up  the  final  clause: 
"My  soul  has  been  delivered."  The 
Hebrew  conception  of  the  vital  prin- 
ciple, which  they  called  NePheSh, 
was  not  in  all  respects  identical 
with  ours  in  regard  to  the  "soul." 
Like  the  Greek  psyche,  this  word 
must  often  be  translated  "life";  yet 
it  still  further  resembles  the  Greek 
term  by  being  the  only  word  that 
the  language  furnishes  for  use 
when  "soul"  is  meant.  It  is  em- 
ployed with  substantially  this 
meaning  in  the  following  passages 
of  Genesis,  among  others. 

"I  will  eat  of  my  son's  venison, 
that  my  soul  may  bless  thee." 

"We  saw  the  distress  of  his  soul, 
when  he  besought  us." 

"O  my  soul,  come  not  thou  into 
their  council." 

Such  doubt  as  might  exist  in  re- 
gard to  the  meaning  of  this  word 
in  the  passage  under  consideration 
is  instantly  removed  by  the  nature 


2o  Jacob's  New  Name 

of  the  verb  that  was  employed  in 
connection  with  it;  for  although 
this  occurs  more  than  two  hundred 
times  in  the  Old  Testament,  it  is 
never  translated  elsewhere  "to  pre- 
serve"; but  usually  "to  deliver"; 
with  "to  rescue,"  or  "to  escape," 
as  alternatives.  Its  fundamental 
meaning  is  "to  draw  out,"  and  the 
thought  is  usually  implied  that  it 
is  from  a  dangerous  or  undesirable 
condition.  This  very  chapter  re- 
cords that  Jacob  prayed,  "Deliver 
me,  I  pray  thee,  from  the  hand  of 
my  brother." 

In  his  last  sickness,  Israel  laid 
his  hands  upon  the  heads  of  his 
grandchildren  Ephraim  and  Manas- 
seh  and  said,  "The  angel  which 
redeemed  me  from  all  evil,  bless 
the  lads."  His  heavenly  visitant  is 
similarly  described  in  Hosea  xii,  4, 
as  an  "angel;"  and  there  was  no 
other  occasion  than  this  to  which 
Israel  can  well  be  thought  to  have 
referred. 


Jacob's  Conversion  21 

An  exact  translation  of  the  word 
describing  the  nature  of  the  con- 
flict assists  in  determining  the  true 
result.  The  phrase,  "There  wres- 
tled a  man  with  him  until  the 
breaking  of  the  day,"  gives  the  im- 
pression that  the  two  antagonists 
were  about  equal  in  strength,  and 
that  Jacob  held  his  own.  It  is  no- 
ticeable, however,  that  the  Hebrew 
text  does  not  employ  the  word  pro- 
perly meaning  "to  wrestle,"  which 
occurs  in  Genesis  xxx,  8,  where  it 
is  stated  that  Rachel  said,  "With 
wrestlings  of  God  did  he  wrestle 
with  my  sister;"  but  uses  another 
term  that  is  not  found  elsewhere 
in  Scripture;  this  is  the  word  mean- 
ing "dust,"  which  here  alone  is  given 
the  form  and  power  of  a  verb. 
The  exact  English  equivalent  of 
the  Hebrew  expression  is  that  the 
visitor  "dusted"  with  Jacob;  and 
the  meaning  clearly  is,  that  he 
struggled  in  the  dust  with  him. 
This  shows  at  once,  however,  that 
the  two  were  not  standing  erect  as 


22  Jacob's  New  Name 

they  struggled  together;  but  that 
the  angel  laid  Jacob  in  the  dust. 
Yet,  although  there  was  no  difficul- 
ty in  thus  throwing  Jacob  to  the 
ground,  he  would  not  yield;  pros- 
trate though  he  was,  he  still  contin- 
ued to  struggle. 

The  account  goes  on  to  state, 
that  the  heavenly  visitant  s,aw  the 
he  was  not  able  for  Jacob.  What  it 
was  that  he  was  not  able  to  do  is 
not  stated,  but  is  left  to  be  inferred 
from  the  context.  It  should  be  par- 
ticularly noticed  that  the  statement 
is  not  made,  that  the  angel  was  not 
able  to  outwrestle  Jacob,  and  thus 
prevail  against  him;  for  the  truth 
is  that  it  is  clearly  revealed  that  he 
did  this  in  the  beginning  of  the 
struggle.  Let  us  remember,  that 
there  is  just  one  thing  at  which 
the  power  of  God  stops  short,  lim- 
ited by  the  conditions  which  He 
imposes  upon  Himself,  and  that  is, 
that  He  never  forces  the  submis- 
sion of  a  human  will.  The  yielding 
must  be  voluntary,  or  it  can  not  be 


Jacob's  Conversion  23 

accepted.  What  the  angel  could 
not  do,  was  to  force  Jacob  to  yield 
himself  up  to  a  power  greater  than 
his  own.  Throughout  his  life  he 
had  been  masterful;  going  his  own 
way.  Now,  though  prostrate  and 
powerless  to  rise,  he  still  could,  and 
would,  struggle.  So,  for  the  sal- 
vation of  his  soul,  as  well  as  for 
the  preservation  of  his  life  from 
the  vengeance  threatened  by  Esau, 
the  angel  "touched  the  hollow  of 
his  thigh ;  and  the  hollow  of  Jacob's 
thigh  shrank  away,  in  his  strug- 
gling in  the  dust  with  him." 

The  action  of  the  thigh  is  ex- 
pressed by  a  verb,  which  in  its  us- 
ual form  means  "to  force  in."  It 
is  generally  employed  to  describe 
blowing  a  blast  into  (and  through) 
a  trumpet,  or  thrusting  a  sword  into 
the  flesh,  or  driving  a  nail  or  a  peg 
into  something.  Slightly  modified, 
as  in  this  case,  it  is  used  to  express 
alienation  of  heart — a  turning 
away,  a  shrinking  away  from  an- 
other, with  aversion.  The  Biblical 


24  Jacob's  New  Name 

statement  is  that  Jacob's  thigh 
forced  itself  in,  or  back;  an  action 
which  "shrank  away"  describes 
quite  accurately.  That  this  is  the 
true  translation  is  shown  by  verse 
32,  which  the  King  James  version 
renders:  "Therefore  the  children 
of  Israel  eat  not  of  the  sinew  which 
shrank,  which  is  upon  the  hollow 
of  the  thigh,  unto  this  day;  because 
he  touched  the  hollow  of  Jacob's 
thigh  in  the  sinew  that  shrank." 

The  word  rendered  "shrank"  is 
an  adjective,  derived  from  the  verb 
meaning  "to  forget."  Strictly 
speaking,  the  Bible  describes  the 
affected  part  as  "the  forgetful  mus- 
cle;" that  is  to  say,  as  the  muscle 
which  forgot  or  neglected  to  per- 
form its  proper  function;  a  muscle 
that  was  more  or  less  paralyzed. 
The  revisers  substituted  the  word 
"hip"  for  "shrank;"  but  a  deriva- 
tion of  the  term  trom  the  word 
meaning  "hip"  is  almost  impossi- 
ble; and  it  should  also  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Bible  clearly  and 


Jacob's  Conversion  25 

sharply  discriminates  between  the 
hip  and  the  thigh.  See  Judges  xv, 
8:  "And  he  smote  them  hip  and 
thigh/' 

Jacob  had  already  come  to  some 
realization  of  his  unworthiness, 
and  of  his  dangerous  condition.  He 
now  learned  his  powerlessness. 
Further  resistance  was  impossible; 
and  he  knew  that  the  antagonist  at 
whose  touch  his  muscle  had 
shrunk  away  could  not  only  now 
do  with  him  as  he  would,  but  that 
he  could  also  have  done  so  at  the 
beginning  of  the  struggle,  or  at  any 
time  that  he  desired  during  its  con- 
tinuance. It  was  only  by  Divine 
forbearance  that  his  life  had  been 
spared.  As  he  realized  this,  the 
man  who  had  always  domineered, 
dictated,  and  perversely  gone  his 
own  way,  broke  down  and  sur- 
rendered, finally  and  completely. 
Henceforth  he  could  expect  no 
good  to  come  to  him  from  his  own 
scheming  and  planning.  Hereafter 
he  could  find  prosperity  only  in  the 


26  Jacob's  New  Name 

blessing  of  his  God ;  to  Him,  there- 
fore, he  resolved  to  cling. 

A  most  typical  conversion  is  that 
here  described.  Hosea,  adding  to 
the  information  given  in  Genesis, 
tells  us  that  Jacob  "wept  and  made 
supplication  to  Him,"  as  he  desper- 
ately declared:  "I  will  not  send 
Thee  away,  except  Thou  bless  me." 
As  was  shown  in  the  article  enti- 
tled "Contrasted  Covenants,"  pub- 
lished in  the  number  of  Watchword 
and  Truth"  for  Sept.,  1904,  the 
verb  ShaLaCH,  which  our  current 
versions  here  render  "Let  me  go," 
expresses  the  thought  of  sending 
one  forth  upon  a  special  mission, 
for  the  accomplishment  of  some 
particular  purpose.  Its  Greek 
equivalent  is  apostello,  from  which 
our  word  "apostle"  is  derived.  The 
angel  did  not  ask  merely  that  Ja- 
cob should  reluctantly  permit  him 
to  tear  himself  away ;  but  he  wished 
that  the  patriarch  should  heartily 
concur  in  his  evident  desire  to  de- 


Jacob's  Conversion  27 

part;  and  thus  should  give  up  his 
,own  will,  and  voluntarily  submit  to 
that  of  his  visitor.  He  asked  to  be 
commissioned  to  go  forth  on  Ja- 
cob's behalf,  desiring  full  confidence 
that  his  way  was  best;  and  to  this 
Jacob  consented,  entreating  only 
for  his  blessing  before  he  departed; 
an  entreaty  that  was  graciously 
complied  with.  Possibly  the  mis- 
sion upon  which  he  then  went  forth 
was  that  of  awakening  in  Esau's 
mind  thoughts  of  his  boyhood  days ; 
thus  preparing  him  to  forget  the 
wrongs  he  had  suffered,  and  to 
greet  .his  brother  with  his  early  af- 
fection. 

Before  the  angel's  departure, 
however,  he  called  Jacob's  atten- 
tion to  the  meaning  of  his  name, 
"Supplanter;"  a  name  which  Esau 
had  bitterly  declared  to  be  right- 
ly bestowed;  for,  said  he,  "He 
has  supplanted  me  these  two  times ; 
he  took  away  my  birthright;  and, 
behold,  he  has  now  taken  away  my 


28  Jacob's  New  Name 

blessing."  An  appropriate  name 
had  it  been  for  the  former  man; 
but  it  was  not  truly  applicable  to 
the  new  man,  for  whom  old  things 
had  passed  away,  and  all  things  had 
become  new.  It  had  been  his  char- 
acter to  manage  things  for  himself; 
but  it  had  now  become  his  desire 
to  submit  to  the  direction  of  his 
God  and  trust  to  Him  for  all  that 
he  needed.  "Thou  hast  command- 
ed with  God  and  with  men,"  said 
the  angel;  that  was  the  old  man; 
as  for  the  new  man,  "Not  Jacob 
('Supplanter')  shall  thy  name  be 
called  hereafter,  but  Israel  ('God 
commands').  As  did  his  descend- 
ant in  later  days,  the  patriarch  now 
realized,  and  could  say  with  a 
grateful  heart :  "Jehovah  reigns  ; 
Jet  the  earth  rejoice."  "Jehovah 
reigns;  let  the  peoples  tremble." 

Like  others  who  have  yielded 
themselves  to  God,  Jacob  went 
forth  a  changed  man;  not  a  per- 
fect man  by  any  means;  for  the 


Jacob's  Conversion  29 

old  nature  still  struggled  with  the 
new  one;  but,  nevertheless,  a  man 
whose  sincere  desire  it  had  become 
to  obey  the  commands  of  God,  and 
to  rely  confidently  upon  Him. 

It  is  especially  to  be  deplored 
that  the  passage  with  which  we 
have  been  dealing  has  been  so  bad- 
ly mangled  in  our  current  transla- 
tions. Our  accepted  version  reads: 
"Thy  name  shall  be  called  no  more 
Jacob,  but  Israel  (That  is,  A  prince 
of  God) :  for  as  a  prince  hast  thou 
power  with  God  and  with  men 
and  hast  prevailed."  This  is  the 
only  place  in  our  English  Bibles  in 
which  the  phrase,  "Power  with  Gotd" 
occurs ;  and  to  this  source  must 
therefore  be  attributed  much  of  the 
prevalent  thought  in  regard  to  the 
"power"  of  prayer;  yet  the  truth 
is,  that  in  this  passage  of  Scripture, 
as  our  Heavenly  Father  gave  it  to 
mankind,  there  is  no  mention  either 
of  a  "prince,"  or  of  "power,"  or  of 
"prevailing;"  and  Jacob's  blessing 


3O  Jacob's  New  Name 

was  obtained,  not  by  his  struggle, 
but  by  his  surrender.. 

The  revisers  improved  the  trans- 
lation materially,  and  yet  left  it 
very  faulty;  their  rendering  of  the 
above  passage  is:  "Thy  name  shall 
be  called  no  more  Jacob,  but  Isra- 
el (That  is,  He  who  striveth  with 
God  or  God  striveth)  ;  for  thou  hast 
striven  with  God  and  with  men, 
and  hast  prevailed."  The  introduc- 
tion of  the  word  "power"  into  the 
earlier  version  is  accounted  for  by 
a  note,  saying:  "The  Septuagint 
and  Vulgate  have;  thou  hast  had 
power  with  God,  and  thou  shalt 
prevail  against  men."  This  is  rath- 
er a  free  translation,  however,  for 
the  true  reading  of  the  Septuagint 
is,  "Having  been  strong  with  God, 
also  with  men  shalt  thou  be  able," 
while  the  Vulgate,  introducing  the 
word  "prevail,"  reads,  "If  thou  hast 
been  strong  against  God,  how  much 
more  shalt  thou  prevail  against 
men!" 


Jacob's  Conversion  31 

That  the  real  meaning  of  the 
name  Israel  is  "God  commands" 
will  be  fully  shown  in  the  follow- 
ing chapter,  which  will  also  call 
attention  to  some  of  the  surprising 
and  most  important  results  which 
follow  upon  a  recognition  of  its 
true  force. 


CHAPTER  II. 


The  Title  Sar 


When  the  crippled  Jacob  had 
surrendered  to  the  visitor  against 
whose  superior  strength  he  long 
had  vainly  struggled,  the  angel 
said  unto  him,  What  is  thy  name? 
and  he  said,  Jacob  (the  supplanter). 

"And  he  said,  not  JACOB  shall 
thy  name  be  called  hereafter,  but 
I-SRA-EL:  for  thou  hast  SAR-red 
with  God  and  with  men,  and  hast 
been  able." 

The  appellation  then  given  to  this 
ancestor  of  the  Hebrew  nation  term- 
inates in  EL,  one  of  the  names  of 
God.  The  I  with  which  it  begins  is 
a  sign  that  the  following  verb  has 


The  Title  Sar  33 

a  masculine  subject  in  the  third  per- 
son, and  that  it  is  in  the  tense  com- 
monly (but  erroneously)  called  "fu- 
ture." The  truth  is  that  verbs  of 
this  kind  may  refer  to  time  either 
past,  present  or  future ;  but  that  the 
action  is  thought  of,  not  as  having 
come  to  an  end,  but  as  going  on  or 
continuing.  Our  present  tense  fre- 
quently expresses  the  same  thought. 
The  remaining  letters  SRA  are 
closely  connected  with  the  verb 
transliterated  SAR,  whose  radical 
meaning  is  "to  arrange,"  "to  set  in 
order,"  or  "to  order."  This  is  most 
clearly  evidenced  in  the  noun 
SORAH,  meaning  "an  arrange- 
ment," or  "an  orderly  disposition  " 

As  the  corresponding  Arabic 
word  SARUH  is  applied  to  a  row  of 
stones,  our  translators  jumped  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Hebrew 
equivalent  must  mean  "a  row,"  and 
therefore  translated  it  accordingly 
(or  rather,  by  the  words  "in  rows") 
in  Isaiah  xxviii,  25,  which  is  the 


34          Jacob's    New    Name 

only  Biblical  passage  in  which  the 
term  occurs. 

"Doth  he  not  cast  abroad  the 
fitches,  and  scatter  the  cummin, 
and  put  in  the  wheat  in  rows  and 
the  barley  in  its  appointed  place  and 
the  spelt  in  the  border  thereof?" 

An  examination  of  the  Scriptural 
references  to  the  sowing  of  wheat 
will  show,  that  it  was  the  custom  to 
sow  this  grain  broadcast;  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  think  that  the  He- 
brews then  used  anything  like  a 
drill,  to  plant  their  wheat  in  rows. 
On  referring  to  the  ancient  versions, 
we  will  find,  that  the  Septuagint 
translators  did  not  render  the  word 
SORAH  at  all ;  apparently  because 
they  were  not  sure  as  to  its  mean- 
ing. Jerome,  however,  who  had  the 
assistance  of  a  number  of  Jewish 
Rabbis,  correctly  represented  it  in 
the  Vulgate  by  the  words  "per  or- 
dinem." 

It  is  clear  that  what  the  prophet 
meant  was,  not  that  the  wheat  was 
sown  "in  rows/'  but  that  it  was 


The  Title  Sar  35 

sown  in  the  proper  place  or  time; 
or  in  due  order.  The  Jewish 
farms  were  of  small  size,  and  the 
farming  much  resembled  our  gar- 
dening. The  farmer  prepared  sec- 
tions of  his  ground  for  fitches  and 
cummin;  he  had  an  appointed  place 
for  barley,  and  spelt  was  sown  along 
the  borders.  .  But  in  addition  to 
these  arrangements  he  also  devoted 
a  large  section  to  wheat ;  and  here  it 
was  that  the  wheat  was  sown  "in 
order,  or  in  due  time." 

From  the  root  meaning  "to  ar- 
range," "to  set  in  order,"  the  He- 
brew language,  in  its  earliest  his- 
torical stage,  had  formed  the  noun 
SAR,  meaning  "He  who  arranges," 
or  "He  w'ho  sets  in  order."  This 
was  applied,  specifically,  to  a  man 
who  had  charge  of  a  number  of  his 
fellow-men,  who  were  set  in  order, 
arranged,  or  detailed  for  their  sever- 
al duties,  by  him ;  he  was  their  "ar- 
ranger," "or  orderer,"  and  was  also 
their  leader  or  chief. 

In  English  the  noun  "6fder,"  has 


36          Jacob's    New    Name 

as  its  fundamental  thought,  that  of 
a  proper  arrangement  of  a  number 
of  units,  so  that  each  is  duly  dis- 
posed in  relation  to  all  the  others; 
yet  by  a  natural  growth  the  term 
has  also  come  to  be  applied  to  a 
command  by  means  of  which  due 
order  upon  the  part  of  a  nuypjber  of 
subordinates  is  secured.  The  He- 
brew term  had  nearly  the  same  de- 
velopment; as  the  "arranger,"  or 
"orderer,"  performed  his  work  by 
giving  "orders"  or  commands  to  the 
men  under  his  charge,  he  soon  came 
to  be  looked  upon  rather  as  the 
"Commander,"  than  as  the  "Ar- 
ranger." 

In  Genesis  and  the  first  chapter  of 
Exodus,  the  title  SAR  was  applied 
as  follows : 

First:  To  the  officers  of  Phar- 
aoh's court,  who  had  charge  of  his 
affairs.  Gen.  xii,  15:  "The 
SARS  of  Pharaoh  saw  her  [Sarah], 
and  praised  her  to  Pharaoh." 

Second:  To  Potiphar,  "captain" 
of  Pharaoh's  bodyguard. 


The  Title  Sar  37 

Third:  To  Phicol,  "captain"  of 
Abimelech's  little  band  of  armed 
men. 

Fourth:  To  the  "chief"  of  Phar- 
aoh's butlers,  and  the  "chief"  of  his 
bakers. 

FiftrK  To  the  "keeper"  of  the 
prison  in  which  Joseph  was  con- 
fined. 

Sixth :  To  the  overseers  or  "task- 
masters" in  charge  of  the  Hebrews, 
when  they  were  reduced  to  slavery. 
The  word  was  employed  with  this 
meaning  by  the  Hebrew  who  smote 
his  brother,  and  who,  when  reproved 
by  Moses,  answered:  "Who  made 
thee  an  overseer  and  a  judge  over 
us?" 

Seventh :  To  the  herdsmen  whom 
Pharaoh  requested  Joseph  to  ap- 
point as  "rulers"  over  the  king's 
cattle.  See  Gen.  xlviii,  6. 

This  completes  the  use  of  the 
term  in  the  Biblical  history  of  events 
prior  to  the  exodus  from  Egypt.  It 
will  readily  be  seen  that  it  was  then 
applicable  to  any  officer — however 


38          Jacob's    New    Name 

low  his  rank  might  be — whom  a 
higher  authority  entrusted  with  the 
management  of  any  part  of  his 
affairs,  or  placed  in  charge  of  a  band 
of  men,  whether  soldiers,  labourers 
or  slaves,  or  even  assigned  to  the 
care  of  a  herd  of  cattle. 

As  a  word  of  this  kind  is  needed 
in  every  language,  and  the  English 
formerly  had  none,  the  common  peo- 
ple have  borrowed  from  the  Dutch 
the  term  "boss,"  which  would  be  a 
very  satisfactory  equivalent  if  it 
were  not  "low."  The  word  "Com- 
mander" implies  greater  dignity 
than  was  necessarily  involved  in  the 
office  described  by  the  Hebrew  title, 
in  its  earlier  use;  but  as  time  went 
on  this  title  gradually  cast  off  its 
applicability  to  men  having  but 
petty  authority,  and  finally  became 
a  term  indicative  of  high  position. 
Considering  its  wide  range  of  mean  - 
ing,  "Commander"  is  perhaps  the 
best  equivalent  that  the  English 
language  possesses,  which  has  a 


The  Title  Sar  39 

verb  of  similar  meaning  derived 
from  the  same  root. 

After  the  noun  SaR  had  come  into 
common  use,  the  verb  derived  from 
the  same  root  naturally  came  to 
mean,  "to  act  as  a  SaR;  to  give  or- 
ders ;  to  command."  Yet  this  is  not 
very  different  from  its  original 
meaning,  "to  arrange;  to  set  in  or- 
der; to  order."  The  verb  had  evi- 
dently obtained  this  degree  of  de- 
velopment when  it  was  used  in  Gen- 
esis xxxii,  28 : 

"Thou  hast  commanded  (SAR- 
red)  with  God  and  with  men;  and 
hast  been  able." 

That  had  been  Jacob's  prevailing 
characteristic.  He  had  always  de- 
sired to  arrange  for  himself  all 
affairs  with  which  he  had  had  con- 
nection. He  assumed  the  position 
of  leader  or  commander,  and  tried 
to  dictate,  not  only  to  his  fellow- 
men,  but  even  to  God  Himself.  It 
should  be  noticed  that  it  was  not 
said:  "Thou  hast  commanded  God 
and  men";  but,  "Thou  hast  com- 


40          Jacob's    New    Name 

manded  with  God  and  with  men"; 
that  is  to  say,  he  had  given  com- 
mands; and,  regardless  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  futile,  he  had  as- 
sumed an  authority  that  he  did  not 
possess.  The  new  name  was  in- 
tended as  a  constant  reminder  of  his 
true  position;  as  a  constant  appeal 
to  his  new  nature.  He  was  not 
commander;  "God  commands." 

And  yet,  there  is  almost  a  tone  of 
admiration  in  the  last  words.  "And 
thou  hast  been  able;"  for  Jacob  had 
indeed  shown  great  human  ability; 
he  had  been  shrewd  in  planning  and 
keen  in  bargaining,  and  his  angelic 
visitor  was  able  to  praise  him  to  that 
extent;  but  Jacob  had  now  learned 
that  the  time  comes  when  human 
ability  fails,  and  is  taught  to  realize 
that  "There  is  a  Divinity  that  shapes 
our  ends;  rough-hew  them  how  we 
will."  Over  all  our  planning  and 
struggling,  "God  commands." 

It  may  be  noticed  that  the  revisers, 
giving  to  the  verb  the  erroneous 
meaning  "to  strive,"  say  that  the 


The  Title   Sar  41 

name  means,  "He  who  striveth 
with  God,"  or  "God  striveth."  Al- 
though it  has  already  been  clearly 
shown  that  the  true  meaning  of  the 
verb  is  "to  command,"  and  not  "to 
strive,"  the  question  still  remains 
May  not  the  meaning  of  "Israel" 
be  "He  who  commands  God,"  rather 
than  "God  commands,"  or,  "He 
whom  God  commands"? 

The  answer  is:  "First:  The  first- 
mentioned  of  these  possible  mean- 
ings would  be  untrue :  Jacob  did 
not  command  God :  he  attempted  it ; 
but  failed,  and  surrendered. 

Second :  The  Hebrew  construc- 
tion almost  always  places  the  verb 
first,  immediately  followed  by  its 
subject.  There  are  some  forty  He- 
brew names  beginning  with  a  verb 
in  the  so-called  future  tense,  and 
terminating  either  in  EL  (God)  or 
in  JAH,  IAH,  or  YAH,  meaning  Je- 
hovah. In  all  but  two  of  these  there 
is  no  question  that  God  or  Jehovah 
is  represented  as  performing  the  ac- 
tion expressed  by  the  verb.  The  two 


42          Jacob's    New    Name 

exceptional  cases;  Jahaleel,  said  to 
mean  "He  praises  God,"  and  Jahleel 
defined  "He  waits  for  God,"  may 
rather  mean  "God  praises  (him)," 
and  "God  waits  for  (him)."  That 
God  sustains  some  special  and  pe- 
culiar relation  to  the  action  is  in- 
dicated by  shortening  the  vowel  be- 
fore the  terminal  component.  This 
shortening  sometimes  occurs  for 
other  reasons,  when  the  termination 
is  not  in  the  accusative  case;  but  it 
certainly  would  not  fail  to  occur  if 
God  were  represented  as  the  object 
of  the  action.  "He  commands  God" 
would  therefore  be  written  "Isreel," 
rather  than  "Israel."  It  therefore 
seems  clear  that  the  verb  means 
"God  commands,"  or  in  its  specific 
application  to  the  man  Jacob,  "He 
whom  God  commands." 

Having  thus  learned  the  meaning 
of  the  title  SaR  in  its  earlier  use,  it 
may  be  interesting,  and  will  cer- 
tainly be  helpful,  to  examine  its 
later  history. 

When     Moses     appointed     "able 


The  Title  Sar  43 

men  out  of  all  Israel,  and  made 
them  heads  over  the  people,  rulers 
of  thousands,  rulers  of  hundreds, 
rulers  of  fifties,  and  rulers  of  tens," 
who  judged  the  people,  these 
"rulers"  were  entitled  SaRs.  When 
Balak  sent  ambassadors  to  Balaam, 
these  also  were  described  by  the 
same  term.  In  the  Book  of  Joshua 
this  is  said  to  be  the  title  claimed 
by  the  "captain"  of  the  host  of  the 
Lord,  before  whom  the  leader  of 
the  Israelites  loosed  his  shoe  from 
off  his  foot.  In  Judges  we  find  the 
term  applied  to  Zebul  the  "ruler" 
of  the  city  of  Shechem.  In  times 
still  later  David  was  a  SaR,  in 
Saul's  army ;  and  this  title  was  given 
to  Abner,  Amasa,  Joab  and  Naa- 
man.  In  First  and  Second  Kings 
we  read  of  the  SaRs  of  the  chariots, 
and  of  the  SaRs  of  Jezreel,  even 
the  elders. 

Coming  down  to  the  days  of  the 
prophets,  we  find  that  Isaiah  in  his 
earlier  writings  (chapter  iii.,  verse 
3)  mentioned  "the  SaR  of  fifty,"  thus 


44          Jacob's    New   Name 

showing  that  Moses'  system  of  gov- 
ernment had  remained  in  force,  in 
this  respect  at  least,  as  late  as  the 
reign  of  Jotham.  Jeremiah,  in  sev- 
eral passages,  referred  to  the  SaRs 
of  the  Assyrian  army,  apparently 
meaning  their  generals.  With  these 
exceptions,  none  of  the  prophets 
used  the  term  in  any  other  meaning 
than  that  of  the  noblemen  of  the 
king's  court,  employed  as  his  higher 
officers,  and  having  charge  of  some 
department  of  his  affairs. 

Hosea  mentioned  the  title  eight 
times,  and  prophesied  that  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  should  abide  many 
days  without  a  king  and  without  a 
SaR.  In  accordance  with  this 
prophecy,  none  of  the  prophets  who 
wrote  after  the  return  from  the 
Babylonian  captivity  made  any  ref- 
erence to  a  SaR.  Zephaniah  (i,  8), 
distinguished  between  the  SaR  and 
the  King's  children.  The  word  also 
occurs  in  the  writings  of  Amos  and 
Micah. 

In  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  this  title 


The  Title  Sar  45 

is  given  to  the  people's  rulers,  to  the 
"chiefs"  of  the  priests,  and  to  the 
officers  in  charge  of  the  various  dis- 
tricts, or  \vards,  into  which  Jerusa- 
lem was  divided;  also  to  the  "gov- 
ernor" of  the  castle,  and  to  the 
"captains"  of  the  Assyrian  army. 
In  First  and  Second  Chronicles  the 
term  is  used  in  accordance  with  its 
meaning  during  the  times  de- 
scribed. 

In  Daniel  and  Esther  the  term  is 
uniformly  translated  "prince,"  the 
former  referring  to  "the  prince  of 
the  eunuchs,"  "the  prince  of  the 
host,"  "the  prince  of  princes,"  and 
"Michael,  the  great  prince." 

It  has  now  been  shown  that  the 
title  SaR  had  a  gradual  growth  and 
development  of  meaning. 

First :  Prior  to  the  days  of  Moses 
it  was  employed  in  a  sense  closely 
akin  to  that  of  its  root,  and  meant 
"the  arranger,"  "the  orderer,"  or 
"the  commander";  so  that  it  was 
applicable  to  men  as  low  in  rank 
as  the  keeper  of  a  prison,  the  chief 


46          Jacob's    New    Name 

of  a  number  of  servants,  the  over- 
seer of  a  gang  of  slaves,  or  the 
herdsman  of  a  drove  of  cattle. 

Second  :  After  this  title  was  given 
to  the  "able  men"  whom  Moses 
made  "heads  over  the  people,"  it 
soon  ceased  to  be  applicable  to  a 
mere  foreman,  and  was  given  only 
to  officers  of  high  rank,  such  as  am- 
bassadors, mayors  and  generals. 

Third :  After  the  establishment 
of  the  monarchy,  the  title  was  ap- 
plied to  the  noblemen  about  the 
king's  court,  who  executed  his 
commands;  finally  being  reserved 
almost  exclusively  for  these  noble- 
men; for  the  officers  of  equal  rank 
who  commanded  the  king's  army, 
and  for  the  "chief  priests"  who  had 
a  rank  somewhat  similar  in  the 
temple  service. 

Very  important  consequences 
which  follow  a  recognition  of  these 
facts  will  be  considered  hereafter. 


CHAPTER  III. 


The   Mythical   Theory 

and 
The    Meaning   of   the   Name 


The  skeptical  critics  of  the  last 
score  or  two  of  years  have  fancied, 
that  proof  of  their  theory  of  the 
late  date  of  the  Scriptural  writings 
is  found  in  the  alleged  discovery, 
that  the  histories  of  the  times  of 
Samuel,  Saul,  David  and  Solomon, 
do  not  go  back  and  repeat  the 
events  of  the  lives  of  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob. 

No  man  of  sound  and  reasonable 
mind  would  expect  such  meaning- 
less repetition ;  and  it  would  in  fact 
be  surprising,  if  more  than  an  occa- 
sional allusion  to  the  early  patri- 
archs were  to  be  found  in  the  later 
writings.  Such  allusions  in  fact  oc- 


48          Jacob's    New   Name 

cur,  and  it  therefore  becomes  neces- 
sary for  the  critics  to  account  for 
them.  This  they  attempt  to  do, 
either  by  making  a  general  claim 
that  in  such  cases  the  names  are  em- 
ployed in  an  ethnic  sense,  and  re- 
late to  the  Jewish  people  as  a  na- 
tion, without  any  reference  to  actual 
personalities,  or  else  by  falling  back 
upon  the  favorite  assertion,  that  any 
and  all  statements  conflicting  with 
a  pre-conceived  theory  are  inter- 
polations, "distinctly  traceable  to  re- 
daction." 

Thus  Solomon,  in  his  repeated  ap- 
peals to  the  "God  of  Israel"  in  his 
prayer  at  the  dedication  of  the  tem- 
ple, meant  the  God  of  the  Israelites ; 
or  perhaps  it  was  the  "Redactor"* 
who  meant  this,  when,  in  much  later 
times  he  composed  the  prayer  and 
attributed  it  to  Solomon :  and  yet 

*  The  reader  will  please  observe  that  it 
is  an  evidence  of  great  scholarship  to  em- 
ploy this  word  "Redactor,"  with  or  without 
its  French  twist  into  "Redacteur,"  in  this 
careless  manner;  rather  than  to  use  its 
English  equivalent  "Editor." 


The    Mythical    Theory  49 

this  can  hardly  be  the  case,  for  in 
the  "Redactor's"  times  it  was  the 
fashion  to  use  the  word  "Israel"  as 
the  fancied  appellation  of  a  mythi- 
cal ancestor.  So  we  become  in- 
volved in  a  general  muddle ;  and 
nothing  is  really  clear,  except  that 
the  Bible  must  not  be  believed;  for 
all  the  stock  of  faith  that  a  man  can 
well  possess  is  urgently  needed  for 
the  acceptance  of  the  critics'  incon- 
sistent theories. 

Elijah  upon  Mount  Carmel  prayed 
to  the  God  of  Abraham,  of  Isaac  and 
of  Israel,  that  He  would  let  it  be 
known  that  He  was  God  in  Israel. 
So  says  the  Bible ;  but,  according  to 
the  critics,  that  is  merely  the  state- 
ment of  some  later  writer,  who  re- 
corded various  "legends,"  or  fairy- 
tales, prevalent  among  the  people. 
To  be  sure,  there  is  a  remote  possi- 
bility, that  some  mysterious,  but 
real,  personality,  lurked  behind  the 
names  of  Elijah  and  Elisha.  If  so, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  assign  him  to 
times  at  least  as  late  as  those  of  the 


50          Jacob's    New   Name 

"unknown  writer"  of  the  Jehovistic 
document  afterward  embodied  in  the 
Pentateuch.  In  fact,  it  is  one  of  the 
"fascinating  conjectures"  of  the 
critics,  that  he  "may"  have  been 
identical  with  that  personality.  In 
their  eyes  anything  "may"  have  been 
true,  and  hence  probably  was  true, 
and  therefore  should  be  unhesitat- 
ingly accepted  as  true,  except  that 
men  of  God  spake  as  they  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit — their 
prophecy  not  coming  by  the  will  of 
man. 

It  is  the  skeptical  theory  that  the 
Jehovistic  and  Elohistic  documents 
were  written  before  the  days  of  the 
earliest  prophets.  Hejnce,  if  this 
theory  were  true,  they  must  have 
been  as  well  known  to  those  ser- 
vants of  the  Lord,  as  they  would 
have  been  if  our  Saviour's  statement 
were  accepted,  that  Moses  wrote  of 
Him.  It  is,  therefore,  somewhat 
difficult  to  see  how  the  fact,  that 
several  of  the  prophets  do  not  men- 
tion the  patriarchs  at  all,  has  any 


The    Mythical    Theory  51 

bearing  upon  the  question  in  regard 
to  the  truth  of  the  Pentateuch,  other 
than  to  prove,  beyond  all  contro- 
versy, that  a  prophet  who  was  fa- 
miliar with  their  history  might  write 
without  referring  to  them. 

Such  folly  is  hardly  credible,  yet 
it  is  upon  the  flimsy  foundation 
above  described,  that  the  critics  have 
based  their  "irresistible  conclusion," 
that  nothing-  was  known,  in  the  land 
of  Israel,  of  the  patriarchs,  or  of  the 
stories  in  which  their  names  figure, 
until  after  the  period  which  is  now 
selected  by  "learned"  men  as  that 
of  the  production  of  these  "imagina- 
tive tales"-  -  that  is  to  say,  some 
time  during  or  after ,  the  reign  of 
Jeroboam.  Then  it  was,  according 
to  these  great  "scholars,"  that  the 
ethnic  myths,  known  as  the  "Stories 
of  the  Patriarchs"  first  appeared. 

Some  there  are,  indeed,  who  have 
weakly  permitted  themselves  to 
fancy,  that  these  tales  may  have 
been  based  upon  traditions  coming- 
down  from  a  distant  past,  and  pre- 


52          Jacob's    New   Name 

served  by  oral  transmission  from 
generation  to  generation;  so  that 
the  Jewish  people  may  really  have 
had  ancestors  named  Abraham, 
Isaac  and  Jacob.  It  is  now,  how- 
ever, the  general  "consensus  of 
opinion"  among  these  ''learned" 
critics,  that  the  use  of  personal 
names  to  designate  tribes  or  bands, 
and  the  putting  of  tribal  history  into 
the  form  of  personal  story,  were  so 
common  everywhere  in  primitive 
times,  especially  among  Oriental 
peoples,  as  to  make  it  quite  impos- 
sible that  any  true  history  of  an 
early  ancestor  could  have  been  pre- 
served, either  orally  or  by  means  of 
written  documents. 

To  this  unanswerable  assertion, 
we  are  called  upon  to  add  the  some- 
what remarkable  circumstance  that, 
after  using  the  short  and  easy  pro- 
cesses hereinbefore  described,  for 
removing  from  the  historical  books 
all  references  to  the  patriarchs,  no 
further  references  to  them  are  found 
to  remain  therein. 


The    Mythical    Theory  53 

"O  wonderful,  wonderful,  and 
most  wonderful  wonderful !  and  yet 
again  wonderful !  and  after  that,  out 
of  all  whooping!"  Is  it  possible  that 
mortal  man,  within  the  little  space 
of  his  short  life,  can  become  so 
learned!  Well  may  these  "higher" 
critics  mount  the  house-tops,  and 
like  a  swarm  of  predatory  cicadas, 
raise  a  never-ending  strident  chorus 
of  self-laudation ! 

Our  Saviour  endorsed  the  history 
of  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  and 
said  that  they  were  still  living  unto 
God.  With  a  love  of  truth  so  great, 
that  they  are  willing  shyly  to  admit 
that  they,  and  they  alone,  are 
"learned" — no  others  ,need  apply— 
our  "scholars"  of  to-day  deny  that 
those  patriarchs  ever  existed.  So 
the  issue  is  joined. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present 
little  book  to  show,  that  it  was 
God's  good  pleasure  to  "make  foolish 
the  wisdom  of  the  world,"  by  em- 
bodying in  the  new  name  which  He 
bestowed  upon  the  repentant  Jacob 


54          Jacob's    New    N>me 

fivefold  proof  of  the  truth  of  His 
Word. 

We  will  first  consider  the  proof 
contained  in  the  meaning  of  the 
name;  for  this  is  of  such  a  nature 
that  it  must  first  have  been  the 
name  of  an  individual,  and  could 
never  have  become  the  appellation 
of  a  nation,  otherwise  than  by  de- 
rivation from  an  early  ancestor. 

Mr.  Amos  Kidder  Fiske,  in  his 
book  entitled  "The  Myths  of  Israel," 
thus  describes  the  views  of  the 
"higher  critics." 

"The  general  name  for  the  He- 
brew tribes  in  their  union  had  been 
Israel  from  time  immemorial.  Many 
writers  assume*  that  it  antedated 
the  Egyptian  bondage.  According 
to  the  generally-acceptedf  etymol- 
ogy it  meant  'warrior  of  God.' 


*  Good  for  Mr.  Fiske!  They  do  indeed 
"assume"  the  foundation  of  nearly  every- 
thing they  say. 

f  Here  we  have  our  old  acquaintance, 
the  "consensus  of  opinion." 


The  Meaning  of  the  Name       55 

"The  Hebrews  were  not  essen- 
tially a  warlike  people,  and  they 
could  hardly  have  given  themselves 
that  title  in  the  Nomadic  days.  It 
more  probably  sprang  out  of  the  one 
era  in  their  history,  when  they  were 
nerved  to  desperate  battle  for  the 
possession  of  a  country  which  they 
claimed  by  inheritance  and  divine 
promise,  and  when  their  deity  be- 
came a  'God  of  battles.'  It  is  more 
likely  that  Israel  was  adopted  as  a 
general  title  by  a  people  engaged  in 
a  war  of  conquest,  than  by  one 
roaming  about  with  flocks  and 
herds,  or  dwelling  in  servitude  in  a 
foreign  land." 

Let  us  first  inquire  how  it  became 
the  "generally-accepted"  opinion 
that  "Israel"  means  "Warrior  of 
God."  Turning  to  the  Hebrew  dic- 
tionary of  Gesenius,  written  in  the 
early  part  of  the  last  century,  long 
before  philology  had  become  an 
exact  science,  we  find  that  he  defines 
this  appellation,  "Warrior  of  God; 


56          Jacob's    New    Name 

from  SaRaH."  He  states  that  the 
verb  SaRaH  means : 

"i.  To  set  in  a  row,  to  arrange 
in  order. 

"2.  To  be  a  leader,  prince  or 
chief. 

"3.  To  contend,  to  strive;  cog- 
nate with  the  Arabic  ShaRY."  The 
noun  SaR  he  defines,  "A  perfect, 
leader,  master,  chief;  especially  of 
military  chiefs  and  leaders,  a  com- 
mander or  captain." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  back 
to  earlier  days  this  crude  conjecture 
in  regard  to  the  meaning  of  the 
name  Israel;  nor  is  it  any  dispar- 
agement of  his  work  to  call  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  since  his  times 
philology  has  become  a  science.  It 
is  certainly  not  too  much  to  expect, 
however,  that  the  men  who  exult  so 
greatly  in  their  ''higher"  scholarship 
and  who  boast  so  strenuously  of  the 
"modern  thought"  of  our  wonderful 
twentieth  century,  should  be  able  to 
give  us  something  better,  upon  an 
important  philological  question,  than 


The  Meaning  of  the  Name       57 

a  rough  guess,  hoary  with  the  de- 
crepitude of  old  age. 

The  following  are  facts  which 
settle  the  true  meaning  of  the  word 
in  question : 

First.  It  has  already  been  men- 
tioned, that  the  first  element  in  the 
compound-word  "Israel"  is  a  verb, 
and  not  a  noun ;  and  that  the  second 
element  is  the  word  "God,"  which 
furnishes  the  subject  of  which  the 
verb  is  the  predicate.  The  com- 
pound, therefore,  can  not  possibly 
mean  "Warrior  of  God,"  but,  if  the 
verb  expressed  the  thought  of  con- 
flict, would  mean  "God  wars."  Our 
revisers  saw  that  this  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  the  meaning;  .they,  there- 
fore softened  the  expression,  and  de- 
fined it  "God  striveth ;"  thus  coming 
nearer  to  the  truth  in  form,  although 
remaining  as  far  as  ever  from  it  in 
substance. 

Second :  As  was  fully  shown  in 
regard  thereto  in  the  last  chapter, 
the  title  SaR  is  not  "especially" 
applicable  to  military  chiefs  and  cap- 


j 


58          Jacob's    New    Name 

tains.  On  the  contrary,  of  the  four 
hundred  instances,  more  or  less,  in 
which  the  term  occurs  in  the  Old 
Testament,  fully  three  hundred  re- 
late to  the  commanders  of  depart- 
ments of  civil  life. 

Third :  In  the  cases,  compara- 
tively few  in  number,  in  which  the 
title  is  applied  to  a  soldier,  it  never 
refers  to  any  other  than  the  com- 
manding officer  of  a  body  of  troops 
— their  captain  or  general. 

Nearly  half  a  century  ago,  Arte- 
mus  Ward,  the  American  humorist, 
proposed  to  recruit  a  military  force, 
to  put  an  end  to  the  civil  war.  This 
is  the  substance  of  his  statement : 

"Having  noticed  a  general  desire 
on  the  part  of  young  men  to  wear 
epaulets,  I  determined  to  have  my 
company  composed  exclusively  of 
officers;  everybody  to  rank  as  Brig- 
adier-General; thus  preventing  any 
jealousy.  The  idea  of  a  company 
composed  exclusively  of  Command- 
er-in-chiefs,  originated,  I  suppose  I 
scarcely  need  say,  in  this  brain. 


The  Meaning  of  the  Name       59 

Considered  as  an  idea,  I  flatter  my- 
self that  it  is  pretty  hefty." 

It  has  remained  for  those  most 
potent,  grave  and  reverend  seign- 
iors, our  "higher  critics,"  to  appro- 
priate his  idea,  and  attempt  to  im- 
prove upon  it,  by  giving  to  a  whole 
nation — men,  women  and  children 
alike — the  title  of  "Commander-in- 
chief  of  God/' 

Fourth:  The  Hebrews  were  so 
far  from  being  a  body  of  military 
generals,  or  even  from  calling  them- 
selves a  nation  of  soldiers  of  any 
kind,  that  they  never  coined  a-  word 
meaning  "warrior."  Their  nearest 
approximation  to  this  term  was  to 
speak  of  "a  man  of  war,"  or  "a 
maker  of  war" ;  while  the  word  ren- 
dered "war"  really  means  "an  eat- 
ing-up;  a  devouring;  a  devastation." 
Almost  alone  among  the  nations  of 
the  earth,  they  found  no  glory  in 
slaughter  and  destruction,  and  when 
they  were  compelled  to  speak  of  war 
they  used  a  term  that  described  its 
horrors.  War  they  must,  in  many 


6o          Jacob's    New   Name 

cases ;  but  it  was  always  a  repulsive 
necessity.  They  would  never  have 
thought  of  claiming  for  themselves 
the  distinctive  title  of  Warriors ;  and 
their  whole  nature  would  have  risen 
in  protest  against  the  application  of 
such  a  name  to  them  by  the  outside 
world.  Their  delight  was,  and  still 
is,  in  the  arts  of  peace. 

Fifth:  The  title  we  have  been 
considering  has  a  feminine  form,  our 
Common  name  "Sarah."  This  does 
not  mean  a  female  warrior  or  Ama- 
zon, as  it  should  if  the  masculine 
form  meant  Warrior;  but  is  the  title 
of  a  "Commandress,"  a  term  which 
in  its  later  usage  was  especially  ap- 
plicable to  the  wife  or  daughter  of 
a  SaR. 

Judges  v,  28-29.  In  the  song  of 
Deborah : 

"Through  the  window  she  looked 
forth,  and  cried — 

The  mother  of  Sisera — through  the 
lattice : 

Why  is  his  chariot  so  long  in  com- 
ing? 


The  Meaning  of  the  Name      61 

Why    do    the    movements    of    his 

chariots  delay? 

Her  wise  commandresses  answered 
her." 

Here  the  Vulgate  has: 

"One  wiser  than  his  other  wives 
responded  to  her  mother-in-law  with 
these  words." 

I  Kings  xi.  3:  "And  he  [Solo- 
mon] had  seven  hundred  wives, 
commandresses";  that  is  to  say, 
women  of  noble  birth ;  even,  in  some 
cases,  the  daughters  of  kings. 

Isaiah  xlix,  23 :  "And  kings  shall 
be  thy  nourishers,  and  their  com- 
mandresses (i.  e.,  their  wives  of 
noble  birth)  thy  nurses. 

Lamentations  i,  18:  "She  that 
was  great  among  the  nations — 

commandress  among  the  pro- 
vinces— 

She    has   become   tributary." 

Esther  i,  18:  "This  day  the 
commandresses  of  Persia  and  Media 
who  have  hearkened  to  the  utter- 
ances of  the  queen  (in  her  refusal  to 
obey  the  king)  will  say  (the  like) 


62          Jacob's    New    Name 

unto  all  the  king's  commanders;  so 
will  there  be  sufficient  contempt 
and  wrath." 

The  narrative  goes  on  to  state 
that  the  king  thereupon  sent  letters 
into  all  his  provinces,  "that  every 
man  should  SAR  in  his  own  house." 
Possibly,  even  some  of  our  "higher 
critics"  may  be  able  to  see  that  it 
was  the  intention  of  the  king  that 
every  man  should  command — not 
that  he  should  carry  on  war — in  his 
own  house. 

Sixth :  As  is  indicated  by  the  last 
example,  the  cognate  verb  (appear- 
ing in  three  different  forms,  as 
SaRaH,  SWuR  and  SaRaR)  always 
means  "to  command" ;  never  ''to 
make  war." 

Numbers  xvi,  13:  Dathan  and 
Abiram  complained  to  Moses  that 
he  had  brought  the  Israelites  up  out 
of  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey,  to  kill  them  in  the  wilder- 
ness, and  added:  "SaR-ring  over 
us,  thou  wilt  SaR,"  rendered  in  the 
revised  version:  "Thou  must  needs 


The  Meaning  of  the  Name      63 

make  thyself  also  a  prince  over  us." 
There  is  certainly  no  thought  that 
Moses  made  himself  a  warrior  over 
the  people. 

Judges  ix,  22:  "And  Abimelech 
SWuRred  over  Israel  three  years," 
that  is  to  say,  he  commanded  them, 
or  ruled  over  them ;  he  did  not  make 
war  upon  them. 

Proverbs  viii,  15-16:  "By  Me 
[Wisdom]  kings  reign, 

And  princes  decree  justice. 

By  Me  SARS  SAR, 

And  nobles — all  the  judges  of 

the  earth. 

The  statement  is  that  command- 
ers command,  or  rulers  rule;  not 
that  warriors  make  war.- 

Hosea  viii,  4:  "They  have  made 
themselves  kings, 

But  not  by  Me. 
They  have  made  SARS; 
And  I  knew  (them)   not. 
Isaiah  xxxii,  I :     "Behold,  a  king 
shall  reign  in  righteousness, 

And  SARS  shall  SAR  in  judg- 
ment." 


64          Jacob's    New    Name 

With  the  exception  of  the  use  of 
this  verb  in  regard  to  Jacob,  we 
have  here  quoted  all  the  passages  in 
the  Bible  in  which  it  has  been  rec- 
ognized as  occurring;  although 
there  are  two  others,  to  which  it  is 
not  now  necessary  further  to  refer, 
in  which  it  is  really  to  be  found. 

Nothing  can  be  plainer  than  that 
the  thought  is  that  of  ruling  or 
commanding,  and  that  there  is  in  it 
no  more  thought  of  war  or  strife 
than  there  is  of  baking  bread  or 
herding  cattle. 

The  use  of  words  derived  from 
the  root  SAR,  in  other  Semitic  lan- 
guages, as  well  as  by  the  neighbor- 
ing Persians,  will  be  considered  in 
the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues 


Our  examination  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament passages  in,  which  the  He- 
brew text  employs  words  derived 
from  the  root  SaR,  that  occurs 
in  the  name  "Israel,"  having  indi- 
cated that  this  appellation  means 
"God  commands,"  and  does  not 
mean  "Warrior  of  God,"  we  will 
now  put  this  conclusion  to  the  test 
of  an  examination  of  the  meaning 
of  the  words  used  in  the  transla- 
tions of  the  Bible  into  other  Sem- 
itic languages,  as  equivalents  of 
the  Hebrew  terms  that  we  have 
been  considering;  this  will  be  es- 
pecially helpful  in  cases  in  which 
words  derived  from  the  same  root 


66  Jacob's  New  Name 

are  employed.  Singularly  enough, 
the  title  SaR  has  become  so 
thoroughly  naturalized  in  the  In- 
do-European Persian  language, 
and  some  of  its  connections,  that 
it  will  be  necessary  to  examine  its 
force  in  these  tongues  also. 

For  SaR  the  Samaritan  version 
uniformly  uses  RaB,  "great  one,"  a 
word  which  is  common  to  nearly 
all  Semitic  languages,  and  which, 
with  the  suffixed  pronoun  mean- 
ing "my,"  has  passed  from  the 
Aramaic  through  the  Greek,  in- 
to our  English  New  Testaments, 
as  "Rabbi."  The  Syriac  also  em- 
ploys the  same  term,  with  RaYSh, 
"head"  (the  Hebrew  RoESh),  as 
a  variant:  a  third  term  used  as  an 
equivalent  is  ShaLITA,  which,  un- 
der the  form  "Sultan,"  has  come  to 
us  from  the  Arabic  through  the 
Turkish.  In  the  Syriac  version  of 
Genesis  xlvii.  6,  MORA,  "Lord," 
is  found,  a  word  which  appears  as 
the  initial  component  of  the  Aram- 
aic "maran-atha,"  in  I  Cor.  xvi,  22. 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues    67 

The  Assyrian  language  has  no  title 
derived  from  the  root  SaR,  for 
although  a  king  is  entitled  SaRRu, 
and  in  the  construct  state  this  takes 
the  form  SaR,  it  is,  nevertheless, 
derived  from  the  root  SaRaR,  which 
appears  in  the  verb  SaRaRu,  "to 
shine ;  to  be  bright,  glorious  or  re- 
splendent," and  has  no  connection 
with  the  Assyrian  verb  SaRu, 
which  like  the  corresponding  Arabic 
word  has  the  meaning  "to  wander 
or  roam  about."  In  accordance 
with  its  derivation,  SaRRu  denotes 
the  supreme  authority;  while  the 
Hebrew  word  for  King,  MeLeK. 
appears  in  Assyrian  as  MaLKu, 
with  the  meaning  of  an  officer  of 
lower  rank,  a  prince  or  viceroy. 
The  Commander-in-chief  of  the 
Assyrian  army  was  entitled  the 
TuRTaNnu,  or  TaRTaN,  as  the 
word  appears  in  II.  Kings,  xviii,  17: 
and  the  officers  of  lower  rank  were 
given  the  title  SaKNu,  cognate 
with  the  Hebrew  SeGaN  and  the 
Chaldaic  SiGeN.  which  words  may 


68  Jacob's  New  Name 

in  fact  have  been  borrowed  from 
the  Assyrian  language.  Although 
the  Arabic  language  still  contains 
the  term  SaR  (now  almost  obsolete, 
and  very  rarely  used  otherwise  than 
in  compound  nouns)  and  also  pos- 
sesses the  word  RaBB,  which  cor- 
responds to  the  term  generally  used 
as  its  equivalent  in  Chaldaic,  Sa- 
maritan and  Syriac,  the  Arabian 
translators  of  the  Bible  preferred  to 
use  either  RaYS,  "head,"  (plural 
RuWaSsa),  or  WALY,  "governor." 
The  Chaldaic  targums  of  Onkelos 
and  Jonathan  generally  render  SaR 
by  RaB,  but  sometimes  employ 
ShuLTON. 

What  is  probably  the  only  case 
in  which  the  word  SaR  is  found  in 
a  translation  into  any  of  these 
Semitic  languages,  is  in  the  rendi- 
tion of  Isaiah  iii,  3,  in  the  Chaldaic 
text  of  Arius  Montanus.  Here, 
where  Isaiah  referred  to  "the  SaR 
(captain)  of  fifty,"  we  find  "the 
SaR  (or  RaB)  of  fifty."  It  is  evi- 
dent that  the  translator  considered 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  69 

the  Chaldaic  term  RaB  not  to  be  en- 
tirely satisfactory  as  a  rendition  of 
the  Hebrew  title;  and  he  therefore 
transliterated  the  original  word; 
yet,  knowing  that  his  readers  prob- 
ably would  not  understand  it,  he 
added  a  Chaldaic  explanation,  em- 
ploying RaB  as  the  best  equivalent 
that  the  language  possessed. 

The  Hebrew  feminine  title 
SaRaH  is  also  without  an  equiva- 
lent from  the  same  root  in  the  Sem- 
itic languages.  So,  too,  the  verb 
which  appears  in  our  Hebrew  Bi- 
bles under  the  forms  SaRaH, 
SWuR,  and  SaRaR,  is  found  in 
none  of  the  Semitic  Bible  transla- 
tions, with  the  single  exception  of 
'the  Samaritan,  in  which  it  has  the 
form  ShRiR.  Here  it  is  interest- 
ing to  observe  that,  in  the  transla- 
tion of  Genesis,  the  form  SaRaH, 
which  was  there  used  in  the  He- 
brew text,  was  not  followed;  but 
the  much  later  SaRaR  served  as 
the  model.  It  is  also  noticeable 
that  these  dwellers  in  Mount  Eph- 


7o  Jacob's  New  Name 

raim  confused  the  two  sibilants  Sh 
and  S ;  much  as  their  Ephraimite 
ancestors  did  in  earlier  days,  when 
they  "could  not  frame  to  pro- 
nounce" the  Hebrew  Word  "Shib- 
boleth" correctly;  but  saij  "Sibbo- 
leth"  instead. 

MiSRaH,  meaning  "commander- 
ship,"  occurs  only  in  the  Hebrew 
text  of  Isaiah  ix,  6.  Here  the  Sy- 
riac  has  "sultanship"  and  the  Arab- 
ic "headship,"  while  Jonathan  in 
his  Chaldaic  targum  paraphrases, 
and  gives  us  no  real  equivalent. 
There  is  one  more  Hebrew  noun 
derived  from  the  ..root  SaR — 
MeSuRaH — meaning  "that  which 
is  used  for  arranging  or  putting 
in  order,"  the  term  being  ap- 
plied to  a  measure,  in  which  fruits 
or  other  articles  offered  for  sale 
were  neatly  arranged.  In  its  form 
this  word  is  curiously  like  its  Eng- 
lish equivalent;  but  the  resem- 
blance is  merely  accidental.  The 
Chaldaic,  Syriac  and  Arabic  lan- 
guages all  employ  in  its  place  a 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  71 

word  formed  from  the  root  KIL, 
and  the  Samaritan  is  again  the  only 
Semitic  language  which  uses  the 
Hebrew  root  SaR. 

In  Isaiah  x,  15,  the  word 
MaSsOR,  meaning  "a  saw,"  and  ap- 
parently derived  from  SaR  is 
found ;  but  the  corresponding  words 
in  Chaldaic,  Syraic,  Ethiopic  and 
Arabic  all  indicate  that  the  Jewish 
Rabbis  mispointed  the  Hebrew 
term,  and  that  it  should  read 
MaShOR,  as  a  derivative  from  an 
entirely  different  root,  with  which 
the  words  that  we  have  been  con- 
sidering have  no  relationship. 

It  has  already  been  stated  that 
Gesenius  claims  as  his  authority  for 
the  assertion  that  the  Hebrew  verb 
SaRaH  may  be  employed  with  the 
meaning  "to  contend,  to  strive," 
that  it  is  cognate  with  the  Arab- 
ic ShaRY,  having  this  sense.  As 
a  sufficient  proof  of  his  error,  it 
should  be  noticed,  that  he  correctly 
connects  the  Hebrew  noun  SORAH 
with  the  Arabic  SARUH,  the  sim- 


72  Jacob's  New  Name 

pie  sibilant  S  being  used  in  both 
languages.  Semitic  tongues  keep 
their  various  silibants  quite  dis- 
tinct, and  very  rarely  confuse 
them.  It  would  be  within  the 
bounds  of  reasonable  probability 
that  a  Hebrew  word  with  an  ini- 
tial S  might  have  an  Arabic  equiv- 
alent beginning  with  Sh;  but  if  this 
were  the  case  it  would  be  only  as  an 
example  of  the  application  of  a  reg- 
ular rule,  under  which  a  Hebrew 
S  would  be  represented  by  an 
Arabic  Sh  in  almost  every  in- 
stance, with  scarcely  an  exception. 
If  the  Hebrew  SaRaH  were 
cognate  with  the  Arabic  ShaRY, 
then  the  Arabic  equivalent 
of  SORAH  should  begin  with 
Sh  instead  of  S.  The  conclu- 
sion that  the  two  words  have  no 
connection  with  each  other  is  con- 
firmed and  placed  beyond  all  con- 
troversy by  the  fact  that  the  Arab- 
ic root  ShaR  usually  expresses  the 
thought  either  of  trading  or  else  of 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  73 

wickedness  or  depravity.  The 
verb  ShaRY  means : 

ist :     To  buy  or  sell. 

2d :  To  bargain  quarrelsomely 
and  with  disputation. 

3d:  Hence,  to  act  badly  toward 
another  with  whom  one  is  ar- 
guing, to  call  bad  names,  to 
scoff  at,  or  to  accuse  of  malice. 

Anyone  who  has  seen  two  Moors 
engage  in  the  mosc  angry  conten- 
tion, with  the  most  threatening 
gestures,  over  a  matter  of  no  im- 
portance whatever  -  -  apparently 
about  to  tear  each  other  limb  from 
limb — will  be  sure  to  understand 
the  meaning  of  this  verb,  and  the 
necessity  for  its  'existence  in  the 
Arabic  language;  while  its  inappli- 
cability to  the  circumstances  at- 
tending Jacob's  struggle  against  his 
angelic  visitor  is  self-evident.  It 
expresses  the  thought  of  strife  or 
contention  only  so  far  as  this  is 
manifested  in  angry  words;  in  tor- 
rents of  Billingsgate.  Our  verb  "to 
wrangle"  gives  some  approximation 


74  Jacob's  New  Name 

to  the  thought,  but  lacks  the  in- 
tense excitement  and  bitterness  of 
the  Arabic  term,  of  which  the  fun- 
damental conception  is  very  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  Hebrew 
SaRaH,  "to  place  in  order,  or  to 
order." 

Before  concluding  our  examina- 
tion of  the  Arabic,  it  seems  desir- 
able to  call  attention  to  the  use  of 
the  root  SaR  by  the  Persians,  and, 
as  a  prelude  thereto,  to  turn  to  the 
Sanskrit,  to  show  that  it  is  not  an 
Indo-European  root,  and  therefore 
could  not  have  entered  into  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Persians  otherwise 
than  as  a  term  borrowed  from  their 
Semitic  neighbors. 

The  Sanskrit  has  a  noun  SURa, 
meaning  "a  hero,"which  might  pos- 
sibly be  thought  to  be  derived  from 
a  root  SaR,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
fact,  that  the  form  given  above 
seems  to  be  a  mere  misspelling  of 
the  word  of  much  more  common  oc- 
currence, spelled  either  CURa  or 
CuRa,  meaning  "a  hero,  warrior 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  75 

or  champion;  a  lion;  a  boar."  This, 
in  turn,  is  derived  from  the  root 
CRI,  which  conveys  the  thought 
of  hurting,  wounding  or  killing.  A 
warrior,  a  lion,  and  a  boar,  are  all 
wounders  and  killers ;  and  this  is 
therefore  the  thought  expressed  in 
the  name  which  they  possess  in 
common.  Hence  it  is  clearly  evi- 
dent that  the  Sanskrit  SURa,  "a  he- 
ro"— that  is  to  say,  a  killer — and 
the  Hebrew  SaR,  "a  commander," 
— that  is  to  say,  an  orderer — are  not 
of  common  origin. 

In  the  Persian  language  SaR 
means  "head  or  chief."  By  prefix- 
ing this  word  to  hang  (an  army), 
ghaskar  (another  term  for  an 
army)  or  fanj  (troops)  we  obtain 
the  title  of  the  commander  or  gen- 
eral of  a  body  of  soldiers. 
So  the  appellation  of  the  commander 
of  a  body  of  cavalry  (called 
khail)  is  sar-khail.  So  far  the  ti- 
tle is  of  a  military  nature,  and 
might  possibly  be  thought  to  mean 
"Warrior;"  but  ghaugha  being  a 


76  Jacob's  New  Name 

mob,  sar-ghaugha  is  the  leader  of 
the  mob,  and  a  caravan,  called 
qafila,  is  led  by  an  officer  called  the 
sar-qafila.  Pas  and  nauba  both 
mean  "a  watchman,"  and  a  head- 
watchman  is  called  either  sar-pas 
or  sar-nauba.  Khwan  is  a  table  or 
desk,  and  daftar  is  a  book.  A  sar- 
khwan  is  a  reader,  lecturer  or  sing- 
er, and  a  sar-daftar  is  a  book-keep- 
er, clerk  or  accountant,  while  a  sar- 
kar  is  a  superintendent  or  overseer 
of  work  (kar).  If  further  evidence 
is  needed  that  the  term  SaR  has  in 
it  no  thought  of  war,  it  may  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  it  is  some- 
times applied  even  to  animals. 
Thus  qala  is  a  flock  or  herd,  of 
which  the  sar-qala  is  the  leading 
animal;  while  sar-qitar  is  the  appel- 
lation given  to  the  first  camel  of  a 
long  string  of  camels  following  one 
another,  known  as  a  qitar,  each 
camel,  except  the  sar-qitar  having 
its  halter  made  fast  to  the  saddle 
or  harness  of  the  animal  before  it. 
That  the  Semitic  title  SaR  was 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  77 

adopted  and  naturalized  by  the 
people  of  Persia  long  before  the 
days  of  their  conquest  by  the  Mo- 
hammedan Arabs,  is  evidenced  by 
the  fact  that,  under  the  form 
gara,  it  is  found  in  the  ancient 
Zend,  together  with  a  number  of 
other  words  derived  from  the  same 
root. 

In  Arabic  SaR,  and  in  Turkish 
SeR,  are  used  in  precisely  the  same 
way  as  in  the  Persian  language;  so 
that  sar-ghaskar  is  equally  intelli- 
ble  to  Arabs,  Turks  and  Persians, 
as  meaning  "the  general  of  the 
army."  In  the  Arabic  dialect 
spoken  in  Egypt,  the  word  is  giv- 
en its  Turkish  pronunciation  sir; 
a  chief  aide-de-camp'  being  called 
sir-jawiran;  a  grand  master  of  cer- 
emonies, sir-tashryfaty,  and  the 
chief  of  the  corporation  of  mer- 
chants, sir-tugar. 

Lest  it  might  be  thought  that 
the  English  word  "Sir,"  of  precise- 
ly the  same  form  and  some  ap- 
proximation in  meaning,  is  of  sim- 


78  Jacob's  New  Name 

ilar  origin,  it  may  be  well  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact  that  this  is 
merely  a  modification  of  "Sire," 
coming  to  us  from  the  Latin  senior 
(elder)  through  the  Old  French 
senre.  So,  too,  it  may  be  said  that 
SaR  has  no  connection  with  the 
Slavonic  "Czar,"  the  Latin  "Cae- 
sar," or  the  German  "Kaiser;"  for, 
if  such  a  connection  existed,  the 
Hebrew  word  should  begin  with  a 
guttural,  or  at  least  with  the  sibi- 
lant Samekh  instead  of  Sin. 

In  Arabic,  from  the  word  DAR, 
meaning  "a  mansion,"  applied  spe- 
cifically to  the  ruler's  palace,  we 
find  the  title  sar-dar  given  to  an  of- 
ficer of  high  rank,  the  king's  lieu- 
tenant, or  the  chief  of  a  depart- 
ment of  the  government.  This 
word  also  occurs  with  the  same 
meaning  in  Turkish  and  Persian, 
and  even  in  the  Pushtoo  language 
of  Afghan,  which  seems  to  have 
borrowed  it  from  the  Persian,  to- 
gether with  a  number  of  other  sim- 
ilar compounds  in  which  a  prefixed 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  79 

Sar  has  the  meaning  of  command- 
er or  chief.  The  Armenian  lan- 
guage has  also  borrowed  a  number 
of  similar  terms. 

While  we  have  by  no  means  ex- 
hausted the  list  of  compounds  of 
this  nature  contained  in  the  Arab- 
ic vocabulary,  it  is  none  the  less 
true  that  this  title  is  not  used  as 
freely  in  that  language,  to  which  it 
is  native,  as  it  is  in  the  Persian,  in 
which  its  exotic  nature  is  evidenced 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  employed  only 
as  a  title,  and  has  no  verb  or  other 
part  of  speech  connected  with  it. 
Although  the  root  has  disappeared 
from  some  of  the  languages  of  the 
Semitic  family,  its  employment  in 
the  composition  of  a  number  of  dif- 
ferent verbs  and  nouns  in  Hebrew, 
Samaritan  and  Arabic,  is  sufficient 
proof  of  its  true  Semitic  origin. 

So  free  is  the  Arabic  verb 
SaRaH  from  the  thought  of  war- 
ring or  striving,  that  its  principal 
use  is  connected  with  the  duty  of  a 
SaR,  or  herder,  of  cattle.  From 


8o  Jacob's  New  Name 

its  fundamental  meaning  of  setting 
in  order,  or  assigning  each  member 
of  a  band  to  his  proper  place,  or 
duty,  it  has  come  to  be  applied 
mainly  to  setting  cattle  free  in  the 
morning,  so  that  they  may  go  to 
pasture ;  from  this  it  has  come  to  be 
figuratively  applied  to  a  man  going 
to  his  work;  and,  beyond  this,  to 
roaming  about.  Its  original  force 
still  appears  quite  clearly,  however, 
in  its  causative  form,  meaning,  "to 
comb  the  hair,  or  let  it  flow  down 
the  back." 

It  has  now  been  fully  shown  that 
the  Semitic  root  SaR  means  "to  ar- 
range, to  set  in  order,"  and  hence 
"to  order  or  command;"  that  it  is 
used  far  more  frequently  in  regard 
to  the  affairs  of  civil  life  than  to 
those  of  warfare,  and  that  it  nev- 
er refers  to  any  other  warrior  than 
the  officer  in  charge  of  a  body  of 
troops. 

Hence  the  name  "Israel"  could 
never  have  been  applied  in  the  first 
instance  to  an  entire  nation,  with 


The  Title  in  Other  Tongues  81 

the  thought  of  characterizing  them 
as  a  body  of  warriors.  It  must 
originally  have  been  the  designa- 
tion of  some  particular  man;  and  it 
could  come  to  be  the  name  of  a  na- 
tion only  through  their  descent 
from  him. 

It  has  therefore  been  fully  dem- 
onstrated, as  our  first  point,  that 
it  pleased  our  Heavenly  Father  to 
embody  in  the  meaning  of  the 
name  "Israel"  conclusive  proof  of 
the  falsity  of  the  skeptical  theories 
of  modern  "higher"  criticism. 

It  will  hereinafter  be  shown  that 
the  same  word  "Israel"  contains 
within  itself  three  additional  proofs 
of  the  truth  of  God's  Word;  while 
still  another  evidence  of  the  falsity 
of  modern  critical  theories  is  fur- 
nished by  the  fact,  that  one  of  the 
forms  of  the  verb  derived  from  the 
root  SaR  had  become  obsolete,  and 
was  misunderstood,  at  the  time  of 
the  return  from  Babylon. 


CHAPTER  V. 


The  Date  of  Genesis 


It  is  not  a  pleasant  task  to  step 
aside  from  the  firm  footing  of 
the  King's  highway,  in  which  the 
wayfaring  men,  though  fools,  can- 
not err;  and  attempt  to  pick  one's 
way  over  the  quaking  quagmires 
of  infidelity's  bottomless  absurdi- 
ties, through  an  atmosphere  reek- 
ing with  miasmatic  effluvia;  yet 
this  course  is  sometimes  necessary 
for  the  rescue  of  perishing  brethren, 
who  have  heedlessly  followed  blind 
guides  into  the  bog. 

Although  we  are  warned  of  the 
danger  that  answering  a  fool  ac- 
cording to  his  folly  may  cause  us 
to  became  like  him,  we  are  never- 


The  Date  of  Genesis        83 

theless  instructed  to  answer  a  fool 
according  to  his  folly,  lest  he  be 
wise  in  his  own  conceit;  and  surely 
there  was  never  a  time  when  infi- 
delity swaggered  about  with  a 
greater  inflation  of  self-conceit  than 
at  present. 

Let  us,  therefore,  examine  that 
fundamental  assumption  of  the 
modern  "higher"  criticism  which  re- 
lates to  the  date  of  the  Hexateuch. 
Here  follows  an  authoritative  state- 
ment of  the  critics'  theory  upon  the 
subject: 

"The  first  six  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  were  put  into  their  pres- 
ent form  after  the  return  from  the 
exile  in  Babylon.  The  priestly  code 
was  then  formulated,  and  woven 
somewhat  crudely  into  the  pre- 
existing material.  In  addition  to 
the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  contain- 
ing the  law  put  in  force  in  the  time 
of  Josiah's  reforms,  this  consisted 
chiefly  of  the  old  primitive  or  'sa- 
cred' history  of  the  people,  which 
was  used  as  the  framework  of  the 


84  Jacob's  New  Name 

whole.  This  had  been  compiled  in 
the  time  of  Hezekiah,  mainly  from 
two  older  versions,  one  of  which 
had  been  produced  in  the  Land  of 
Judah  from  half  a  century  to  a  cen- 
tury before  his  days,  and  the  other 
in  the  Northern  Kingdom  in  times 
somewhat  earlier;  but  certainly 
later  than  the  division  of  Solomon's 
Kingdom.  This  material  consti- 
tutes the  bulk  of  the  Book  of  Gene- 
sis and  the  first  part  of  Exodus,  and 
is  traceable  in  fragments  through 
the  other  books." 

In  other  words,  it  is  the  critics' 
theory  that  no  book  of  the  Bible 
antedates  the  days  of  Solomon  or 
his  father  David. 

As  the  critics  did  not  live  in  the 
reign  of  Hezekiah  or  Josiah,  it  does 
not  seem  unreasonable  to  ask  how 
they  came  to  know  so  much  about 
the  events  of  those  times.  What 
source  of  information  do  they  pos- 
sess that  is  not  open  to  us  all? 
What  evidence  do  they  present  that 
their  picturesque  description  of  the 


The  Date  of  Genesis        85 

affairs  of  those  early  days  is  some- 
thing more  than  the  dream  of  a 
vivid  imagination  ? 

In  all  their  writings  not  one  iota 
of  proof  is  given.  We  have  their 
statement:  let  that  be  sufficient. 
They  are  kind  enough  to<  favor  us 
with  their  conclusions,  and  these  we 
are  called  upon  thankfully  to  ac- 
cept, without  question.  No  be- 
liever in  Jesus  Christ  is  expected  to 
be  rash  enough  to 'ask  for  the  data 
upon  which  such  conclusions  are 
based;  for  the  subject  is  too  ab- 
struse and  complicated  to  be  within 
the  comprehension  of  the  common 
mind.  Failure  to  accept  their  evan- 
escent whimsies: — each  as  it  is  pre- 
sented— is  a  manifestation  either  of 
gross  ignorance  or  of  sordid  hypoc- 
risy, and  is  moreover  "intolerance 
toward  a  scholarship  which  merely 
insists  upon  telling  the  truth"; 
while  he  who  opens  his  mouth  and 
shuts  his  eyes,  unhesitatingly  swal- 
lowing everything  that  he  is  told  to 


86  Jacob's  New  Name 

gulp  down,  is  immediately  enrolled 
as  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar. 

The  critics'  theory,  that  the  his- 
tory of  Jacob  is  merely  a  myth,  has 
been  disproved  in  the  preceding  ar- 
ticles of  this  series,  by  showing  the 
true  meaning  of  the  name  "Israel" 
to  be  such  that  it  must  first  have 
been  the  appellation  of  a  man,  and 
that  it  could  never  have  become  the 
name  of  a  nation,  otherwise  than  by 
their  descent  from  him.  It  now  re- 
mains to  present  the  three  additional 
proofs  of  the  truth  of  God's  Word 
that  are  embodied  in  this  same 
name. 

In  the  second  chapter  of  this  little 
book  attention  was  called  to 
the  fact  that  the  title  SaR,  the  root 
of  which  enters  into  the  name  "Is- 
rael," had  a  gradual  development 
of  meaning,  commencing  in  the  days 
prior  to  the  exodus  with  its  applica- 
tion to  any  "boss"  or  foreman,  how- 
ever petty  his  authority  might  be, 
and  ending  finally  in  its  exclusive 
reservation  for  noblemen  of  the 


The  Date  of  Genesis        87 

highest  rank,  attached  to  the  royal 
court.  Hosea,  who  wrote  in  the 
Northern  Kingdom,  but  little,  if  any, 
later  than  the  date  assigned  by  the 
critics  to  the  first  draft  of  the 
earliest  portion  of  the  Book  of  Gene- 
sis, used  this  title  eight  times,  but 
never  with  any  other  than  the  last- 
mentioned  meaning.  In  fact,  after 
the  entry  of  Joshua  into  the  land  of 
Canaan,  this  appellation  was  never 
given  to  any  other  than  an  officer 
of  high  rank. 

Now  will  the  critics  kindly  ex- 
plain how  it  happened,  that  the 
"unknown  writer"  to  whom  they 
attribute^  the  "first  draft"  of  the 
most  marvelous  literary  production 
that  the  world  has  ever  known, 
who,  as  they  allege,  produced  his 
work  in  the  same  little  kingdom  as 
that  inhabited  by  Hosea,  and  at  a 
time  but  little,  if  any,  earlier  than 
the  days  of  that  prophet,  used  the 
word  SaR  in  the  Book  of  Genesis 
with  a  meaning  differing  widely 
from  that  which  it  possessed  for 


88  Jacob's  New  Name 

the  people  among  whom  they  say 
that  he  wrote? 

For  those  who  will  not  accept  as 
conclusive  our  Saviour's  statement 
that  Moses  wrote  of  Him,  what 
stronger  proof  of  the  early  date  of 
Genesis  could  be "  given,  than  the 
fact  that  a  word  is  used  therein 
with  a  meaning  which  it  never  had 
in  the  speech  of  the  people  after  the 
exodus,  and  yet  with  a  sense  iden- 
tical with  that  of  its  root,  and  un- 
questionably the  sense  from  which 
the  later  meaning  was  derived? 

Again,  we  find  that  this  title  SaR 
has  a  feminine  form  SaRatl,  used 
by  Deborah  in  her  well-known 
"Song,"  assigned,  even  by  the 
critics  themselves,  to  a  very  early 
date.  Yet  in  the  Book  of  Genesis, 
and  in  that  book  alone,  there  is 
found  a  much  earlier  form  SaRal, 
so  archaic  that  the  best  Hebrew 
scholars  are  unable  to  explain  it,  or 
define  its  exact  meaning  with  any 
degree  of  certainty. 

Maimonides,  in  his  "Guide  for  the 


Thv   Date  of  Genesis        89 

Perplexed"  (part  I,  chapter  Ixviii), 
admits  that  the  Rabbis  are  to  some 
extent  "ignorant  of  the  sacred  lan- 
guage" ;  and  he  can  find  no  better 
explanation  of  the  name  SaRal.than 
that  which  is  obtained  by  compar- 
ing it  with  ADoNal,  "Lord,"  which 
differs  from  ADONI,  "My  Lord," 
in  much  the  same  way  that  SaRal 
differs  from  SaRI,  "My  Command- 
er." The  form  with  a  vowel  "a" 
before  the  terminal  "I"  denotes,  he 
says  (part  I,  chapter  Ixi),  "majesty 
and  distinction."  Gesenius  states 
that  grammarians  differ  as  to  the 
force  of  the  ending  of  ADoNal. 
"Many  regard  it  as  a  plural  form 
put  for  the  singular,  as  spoken  of 
the  Divine  Majesty.  Others  con- 
sider it  the  same  as  the  regular 
plural  having  the  suffixed  pronoun 
'My,'  so  that  it  properly  means  'My 
lords' ;  then  as  a  plural  of  excel- 
lence, 'My  Lord,'  and  at  last,  the 
force  of  the  suffix  being  neglected, 
'Lord,'  'the  Lord.'  This  latter  view 
seems  preferable." 


QO  Jacob's  New  Name 

Accepting  the  conclusion  that 
SaRal  is  a  "plural  of  excellence." 
used  at  an  early  time  when  the  title 
SaR  was  regarded  as  being  of  either 
the  masculine  or  the  feminine  gen- 
der, and  that,  as  Maimonides  says, 
the  termination  denotes  "majesty 
and  distinction,"  the  appellation 
might  be  defined-,  "My  great  Com- 
mander." Bearing  in  mind  the  fact 
that  the  name  ABRaM  means 
"Father  of  Exaltation,"  which  in 
the  Hebrew  idiom  is  practically 
equivalent  to  "Exalted  Father,"  it 
is  at  once  apparent  that  both  of 
these  names  are  unsuitable  for  sin- 
ful mortals;  for  God  alone  can 
properly  be  entitled  the  "Exalted 
Father,"  and  He  alone  can  rightly 
be  addressed  as  "My  great  Com- 
mander." Both  names  were  there- 
fore changed  by  God;  his,  to 
ABRaHaM,  "Father  of  a  Great 
Multitude,"  and  hers,  to  SaRaH, 
"Commandress." 

Now,   will   the   critics,  who  hold 
that  Genesis  was  written  after  the 


The  Date  of  Genesis        91 

days  of  Solomon,  kindly  explain 
how  it  happened  that  the  writer 
used  the  archaic  form  SaRal,  which 
does  not  appear  elsewhere,  while 
Deborah  in  the  days  of  the  Judges, 
employed  the  later  form  SaRaH? 
Could  stronger  proof  be  given  of 
the  early  composition  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch, than  is  furnished  by  the 
existence  of  this  archaic  word  there- 
in? 

Still  another  evidence  oi  the 
early  date  of  Genesis  is  found  in 
the  fact,  already  mentioned,  that 
the  verb  meaning  "to  set  in  order," 
or  "to  command,"  derived  from  the 
root  SaR,  appears  in  the  Hebrew 
text  of  the  Old  Testament  in  three 
different  forms.  In  the  account  of 
Jacob's  struggle  with  his  heavenly 
visitor,  and  there  alone,  it  has  the 
form  SaRaH.  In  a  section  of  the 
Book  of  Judges  relating  to  the  his- 
tory of  the  northern  portion  of  the 
Land  of  Israel,  and  in  the  Prophecy 
of  Hosea,  who  wrote  in  the  North 
Kingdom  and  for  its  people,  this 


92  Jacob's  New  Name 

verb  has  the  form  SWtiR,  while  in 
Numbers,  Proverbs,  Isaiah  and 
Esther  it  is  spelled  SaRaR. 

These  facts  indicate  that  SaRaH 
was  the  earlier  form,  which  in  the 
days  of  Moses  was  already  becom- 
ing obsolete,  SWuR  taking  its  place 
in  the  dialect  of  the  northern  tribes, 
while  their  southern  kinsmen 
adopted  the  form  SaRaR.  After  the 
people  of  the  northern  kingdom 
had  been  carried  away  to  Assyria ; 
when  their  country  had  been  re- 
populated  with  Babylonians  and 
others ;  these  newcomers  seem  either 
to  have  brought  with  them,  or 
else  to  have  adopted,  a  form  similar 
to  that  in  use  in  the  Land  of  Judah ; 
for,  as  has  already  been  stated,  the 
Samaritan  verb  meaning  "to  com- 
mand" has  the  form  ShRIR. 

A  curious  proof  of  the  extent  to 
which  SaRaH  bad  become  unintel- 
ligible to  many  of  the  people  in 
the  days  of  Ho'sea,  may  be  found 
in  the  fact,  that  when  (in  chapter 
xii,  verse  5)  he  referred  to  Jacob's 


The  Date  of  Genesis        93 

struggle  with  the  angel,  he  quoted 
the  exact  word  employed  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  and  wrote:  "He 
SaRaH-ed  God:"  then,  fearing  this 
might  not  be  understood  by  the 
people  whom  he  addressed,  he  re- 
peated the  statement  in  their  own 
dialect,  "Yes,  he  SWuR-red  with 
an  angel."  Further  proof  of  the 
prevalence  of  this  last-mentioned 
form  at  this  time  and  place,  is  con- 
tained in  the  fact,  that  it  was  the 
form  used  by  him  in  chapter  viii, 
verse  4;  the  only  other  occasion  on 
which  it  has  been  recognized  that 
he  employed  this  verb. 

Yet  the  critics,  deaf  to  this  dif- 
ference of  dialect,,  and  blind  to 
every  ray  of  true  historical  light, 
hold  that  the  first  draft  of  the  Book 
of  Genesis  was  written  by  some  un- 
known writer,  who  lived  but  little 
if  any  earlier  than  the  days  of  Ho- 
sea !  Could  any  theory  be  more  ab- 
surd? Could  even  atheistic  folly 
find  a  deeper  depth  in  which  to  wal- 
low? 


94  Jacob's  New  Name 

This  investigation  of  the  facts 
connected  with  the  Hebrew  words 
derived  from  the  root  SaR,  which 
appears  in  the  name  "Israel,"  has 
taken  so  much  time  and  space,  that 
it  may  be  well  to  close  with  a  re- 
capitulation of  the  fourfold  proof 
embodied  therein  of  the  truth  of 
God's  Word. 

First:  The  meaning  of  the  name 
"Israel"  is  such  that  it  must  first 
have  been  bestowed  upon  some  one 
man,  and  no  race  of  people  could 
ever  have  borne  it,  otherwise  than 
because  of  their  descent  from  him. 
The  critics'  theory,  that  no  man 
named  "Israel"  ever  existed,  is 
thereby  effectually  disproved. 

Second:  The  title  SaR  -was  em- 
ployed in  the  Book  of  Genesis  and 
the  first  chapters  of  Exodus  in  a 
sense  which  it  never  had  after  the 
days  of  Moses.  The  inference  is 
therefore  clear  and  positive  that 
this  portion  of  the  Word  of  God 
was  written  before  the  children  of 
Israel  entered  the  land  of  Canaan. 


The  Date  of  Genesis        95 

Third:  The  feminine  title  SaRaH 
was  in  use  at  least  as  early  as  the 
days  of  Deborah;  yet  Genesis  con- 
tains a  form  SaRal,  which  is  very 
much  earlier ;  a  form  so:  archaic  that 
its  true  meaning  has  been  forgotten. 
The  inference  follows  that  Genesis 
was  written  long  before  the  times 
of  the  Judges. 

Fourth:  In  the  Book  of  Genesis 
the  verb  derived  from  the  root 
SaR  has  the  form  SaRaH;  which 
never  appears  in  any  later  book,  ex- 
cept in  the  single  instance  in  which 
Hosea  quotes  it  from  Genesis,  and 
then  explains  it  by  the  form  preva- 
lent in  the  dialect  of  his  own  days. 
As  the  forms  SaRaR  and  SWuR 
are  used  in  Numbers  and  Judges, 
the  earlier  date  of  the  account  in 
Genesis  is  thereby  conclusively 
proven. 

Now  it  is  hardly  credible  that, 
among  all  the  boastful  "scholars" 
who  have  vociferously  chanted  the 
praises  of  infidelity,  there  has  not 
been  one  with  sufficient  scholarship 


96  Jacob's  New  Name 

to  see  these  facts  for  himself.  Of 
the  mob  of  hangers-on,  who  attempt 
to  show  their  wisdom  by  shouting 
"Amen"  in  response  to  every  ut- 
terance of  their  German  masters, 
no  real  acquaintance  with  modern 
philology  could  be  expected;  but 
it  would  seem  that,  among  the  lead- 
ers of  "modern  thought,"  there  must 
be  here  and  there  a  man  with  suffi- 
cient scholarship  to  force  these  facts 
upon  his  attention. 

What  then  can  be  thought  of  the 
indifference  that  has  been  mani- 
fested in  regard  to  them,  and  of 
the  concealment  of  these  truths 
from  the  "mixed  multitude"  of  de- 
luded followers?  Is  it  not  evident 
that  their  boasted  "love  of  truth" 
is  merely  devotion  to  their  own 
fancies?  Have  they  not  shown 
very  clearly  that  they  neither 
have  eyes  to  see  nor  ears  to  hear — 
neither  hands  to  write  nor  tongues 
to  utter — any  truth  that  conflicts 
with  their  own  atheistical  ideas? 

Alas  for  those  weak  lovers  of  our 


The  Date  of  Genesis          97 

Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  have  turned 
their  backs  upon  their  Master  and 
followed  these  blind  guides  into  the 
morasses  of  infidelity!  It  is  with 
the  hope  that  some  of  these  may 
be  led  to  open  their  eyes  and  see 
their  true  position ;  and  so  may  be 
induced  to  return  to  the  King's 
highway  of  truth  and  holiness ;  that 
this  study  is  published. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
A  Change  of  Language 


It  has  already  been  shown,  that 
in  the  name  "Israel"  and  in  the  al- 
lied words  derived  from  its  charac- 
teristic root,  there  are  contained 
four  plain  proofs  of  the  unsound- 
ness  of  modern  critical  theories. 

To  these  a  fifth  may  be  added, 
consisting  of  the  fact  that  at  the 
time  of  the  Jews'  return  from  their 
Babylonian  exile,  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, which  they  had  formerly 
spoken,  had  become  so  obsolete, 
that  the  true  meaning  of  its  verb 
SWuR  had  been  entirely  forgotten. 
Their  ancient  language  had  be- 
come so  unintelligible  to  the  great 
mass  of  the  people,  that  when  "the 


A  Change  of  Language        99 

Law  of  God"  was  read  aloud  in 
their  hearing  they  could  not  under- 
stand it,  until  it  had  been  translated 
for  them  into  the  Chaldean  tongue, 
which  during  their  exile  had  be- 
come their  means  of  communica- 
tion. At  the  time  of  their  return,  a 
few  old  men  were  still  living  who 
could  remember  the  first  temple, 
and  who,  therefore,  must  have  had 
some  recollection  of  the  language 
spoken  during  their  boyish  days; 
but  these  soon  died,  and  thereafter 
the  Hebrew  was  known  only  as  a 
literary  language,  acquired  by 
study,  as  Latin  now  is. 

The  synagogue  translators  were 
forbidden  to  write  out  their  inter- 
pretations, and  having  but  slight 
opportunity  for  comparing  their 
work  with  that  of  others — thus  cor- 
recting errors — it  would  have  been 
surprising  if  they  did  not  occasion- 
ally misunderstand  a  word,  and  thus 
give  to  it  an  incorrect  rendering. 
A  man  of  influence  who  erred  in 
this  way  would  mislead  his  hearers 


ioo         Jacob's   New   Name 

and  his  pupils,  and,  in  later  genera- 
tions, his  erroneous  translation 
might  come  to  be  universally  ac- 
cepted. 

There  is  a  general  impression 
that  the  Jewish  people,  or  their 
Rabbis,  at  least,  thoroughly  under- 
stand the  Hebrew  language;  but 
this  belief  is  without  sufficient 
foundation.  They  do  not  speak  it; 
they  cannot  write  in  it;  and  their 
conception  of  much  of  its  grammati- 
cal structure,  and  of  the  meaning  of 
many  of  its  words,  is  quite  erron- 
eous. It  is  to  them  a  foreign  lan- 
guage; just  as  Latin  is  to  the  Rom- 
ish priests.  They  know  it  only  as 
it  has  been  taught  to  them  by  their 
teachers  and  their  books:  and  the 
errors  of  the  earlier  Rabbis,  having 
been  accepted  as  the  truth  by  their 
scholars,  have  been  handed  down 
by  one  generation  to  another,  until 
they  now  come  to  us  with  the  en- 
dorsement of  all  the  Hebrew  schol- 
ars of  all  the  intermediate  ages :  yet 
they  are  just  as  erroneous  today  as 


A  Change  of  Language      101 

when  they  were  first  brought  into 
being. 

In  the  course  of  time,  by  the  in- 
corporation of  many  words  from  the 
tongues  of  the  various  peoples  with 
whom  they  came  in  contact,  and 
by  other  natural  causes,  the  Chal- 
d"aic  language  developed  into  the 
Aramaic,  which  was  spoken  in  Pal- 
estine, as  the  language  of  the  fam- 
ily, during  our  Saviour's  visit  to 
earth;  while  Greek  was  the  tongue 
used  in  nearly  all  public  affairs,  and 
was  unquestionably  the  language 
in  which  our  Lord's  discourses 
were  delivered. 

The  so-called  "Hebrew,"  in 
which  the  Rabbinical  teachings 
are  preserved,  and  which  is  used 
by  the  Rabbis  of  today,  is  merely 
the  ancient  Chaldaic,  modified  to 
some  extent  by  the  Aramaic,  and 
with  an  admixture  of  Greek  and 
Latin  terms.  It  is  no  more  Hebrew 
than  English  is  Anglo-Saxon. 
There  is  a  connection  between  the 
earlier  and  the  later  language  in 


IO2         Jacob's   New   Name 

both  cases;  yet  the  mutual  unintel- 
ligibility  of  the  two  forms  of  speech 
is  as  great  in  one  family  of  lan- 
guages as  in  the  other. 

The  "Yiddish,"  in  which  news- 
papers are  printed  for  the  Jews,  has 
very  slight  connection  even  with 
the  Rabbi's  "Hebrew";  but  is  usu- 
ally merely  a  corrupt  German  dia- 
lect printed  with  Hebrew  charac- 
ters, and  containing  an  occasional 
Chaldaic  or  Aramaic  word:  a  Sla- 
vonic dialect  is  also  sometimes 
printed  in  the  same  way,  and  given 
the  same  name. 

This  long  explanation  has  been 
necessary,  to  show  the  reason  why 
a  man  like  Maimonides,  con- 
fessedly the  greatest  scholar  that 
the  Jewish  race  has  ever  produced, 
was  obliged  to  admit  that  he  and 
his  people  were,  to  a  certain  extent, 
"ignorant  of  the  sacred  language." 

For  the  reason  that  the  Jews  used 

one    form .  of    speech    before    they 

-vere  expatriated,  and  another  after 

their  return  to  Palestine,  it  would 


A  Change  of  Language      103 

have  been  absolutely  impossible  for 
them,  after  the  exile,  to  put  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  into  their  pres- 
ent shape;  just  as  impossible  as  it 
would  have  been  for  Shakespeare 
to  write  in  the  language  of  Chaucer 
and  Gower,  or  even  in  that  of  Cax- 
ton  and  Fabian;  or  as  it  would  be 
for  our  scholars  of  to-day  to  write 
a  long  book  in  Anglo-Saxon,  and 
leave  no  trace  of  the  fact  that  it 
dated  from  a  time  after  its  language 
had  ceased  to  be  spoken.  Poor 
Chatterton  tried  this  with  a  few 
poems,  and  miserably  failed;  and 
no  attempt  of  this  kind  has  ever 
been  successful. 

Even  the  later  prophets,  steeped 
as  they  were  in  the  earlier  Hebrew 
Scriptures;  meditating  upon  them 
day  and  night,  and  incorporating 
them  into  their  very  beings ;  could 
not,  and  did  not,  write  in  pure  He- 
brew; but  used  so  many  Chalda- 
isms  that  their  language  contains 
within  itself  conclusive  proof  of  the 
date  of  their  writings. 


iO4         Jacob's   New   Name 

Of  all  human  follies,  begotten  by 
ignorant  self-conceit,  and  brought 
forth  by  blatant  infidelity,  none  was 
ever  more  absurd  than  the  incon- 
ceivable stupidity  of  attributing 
the  writing  of  the  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures to  a  time  when  Hebrew  had 
become  a  dead  language;  just  as  if 
the  works  of  Cicero  and  Vergil 
were  to  be  attributed  to  the  monks 
of  the  middle  ages. 

Now,  in  God's  Providence,  it  was 
the  fact,  that  when  the  Jews  re- 
turned to  Palestine,  two  of  the  three 
forms  taken  by  the  verb  derived 
from  the  root  SaR  had  become  ob- 
solete; and  they  were  therefore  un- 
intelligible, except  as  their  meaning 
could  be  conjectured  from  the  con- 
nection in  which  they  occurred. 
SaRaR  was  still  remembered,  and 
was  employed  in  the  Book  of  Es- 
ther; but  the  meaning  of  SaRaH 
and  SWuR  could  only  be  guessed 
at;  and  the  conjectures  then  made 
happened  to  be  erroneous. 

When  in  Genesis  xxxii,  28,  they 


A  Change  of  Language       105 

read  that  Jacob  had  "SaRaH-ed 
with  God  and  with  men,"  they 
guessed  that  the  verb  meant  "to 
make  oneself  great"  or  "to  be 
strong,"  and  translated  it  accord- 
ingly, both  in  this  passage  and  in 
Hosea  xii,  3-4 — the  only  places  in 
which  the  word  occurs.  As  the 
form  SWuR  is  employed  in  the  last- 
mentioned  passage  as  synonymous 
with  it,  it  was  here,  and  here  only, 
given  the  same  meaning.  This  ren- 
dering was  adopted  by  the  Septua- 
gint  translators,  several  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era;  as  well  as 
by  the  targumists,  who  in  the  early 
years  of  our  dispensation  wrote  out 
in  the  Chaldaic  language,  and  thus 
preserved  for  us,  the  version  which 
had  come  down  to  them  by  oral 
transmission  from  the  times  im- 
mediately after  the  return  from 
Babylon.  Still  later,  Jerome  fol- 
lowed it  in  his  Latin  version.  This 
rendering  was  therefore  accepted 
without  question,  until  recent  days, 
when  the  new  conjecture,  that  the 


io6         Jacob's   New   Name 

word  might  mean  "to  strive,"  found 
acceptance,  and  was  followed  by 
the  recent  revisers. 

In  the  remaining  passages  in 
which  SWuR  occurs,  the  bewil- 
dered translators  wandered  even 
farther  from  the  truth.  The  state- 
ment in  Judges  ix,  22,  that  "Abime- 
lech  SWuR-red  over  Israel,"  could 
hardly  be  misunderstood;  and  the 
different  versions  therefore  gener- 
ally agree  that  he  "reigned"  over 
Israel;  except  that  the  recent  re- 
visers tried  the  variation,  "Abime- 
lech  was  prince  over  Israel."  Hosea 
viii,  4,  was  almost  equal!;/  free  from 
possibility  of  misunderstanding: 

"They     have     made     themselves 

kings ; 
But  not  by  Me: 

They     have     caused     (men)     to 

SWuR; 
And  I  knew  (them)  not." 

Here  the  connection  between 
kings  and  their  chief  officers 
known  as  SaRs,  was  so  evident 
that  the  conclusion  could  not  be 


A  Change  of  Language       107 

avoided,  that  the  verb  must  here 
mean  either  "to  act  as  a  SaR,"  or 
else  "to  appoint  as  a  SaR."  The 
line  was  therefore  always  trans- 
lated, "They  have  made  princes," 
until  our  revisers  suggested  in  the 
margin  that  it  might  mean,  "They 
have  removed  them;"  a  conjecture 
which  will  be  shown  to  be  without 
foundation. 

Two  additional  passages  contain- 
ing this  word — Hosea  ix,  12,  and  I. 
Chronicles  xx,  3 — still  remain  for 
consideration.  In  these  the  trans- 
lators cut  entirely  loose  from  their 
renditions  hereinbefore  cited,  and  in- 
vented a  theory  that,  in  each  case, 
although  the  word  was  of  precisely 
the  same  form  as  that  of  the  term 
which  we  have  been  examining,  it 
was,  nevertheless,  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent word,  derived  from  another 
root  of  wholly  different  meaning. 
Moreover,  these  two  new  words — 
each  occurring  only  once — differed 
as  widely  from  each  other,  both  in 
derivation  and  force,  as  they  did 


io8         Jacob's   New   Name 

from    the    commoner   word   of   the 

same  form. 

In  support  of  this  theory,  it  was 
explained  that  one  of  the  two  words 
was  merely  a  variant  of  another 
term  of  somewhat  similar  form; 
while  some  early  grammarian  ob- 
ligingly invented  a  new  root  to  ac- 
count for  the  other.  As  this  al- 
leged "root"  was  not  to  be  found  in 
the  Scriptural  Records,  the  explana- 
tion was  given  that  it  was  "obso- 
lete" ;  which  was  merely  the  "schol- 
arly" way  of  admitting  that  it  was 
wholly  imaginary. 

Yet  this  theory,  having  once  been 
evolved  and  accepted,  was  found 
so  satisfactory  as  a  support  for 
vicious  renderings,  that  it  has  held 
its  place  down  to  the  present  time; 
and  every  Hebrew  lexicon  now  fur- 
nishes the  "information"  that  the 
Sacred  Writings  contain  three  dif- 
ferent words,  all  having  the  form 
SWuR,  of  which  one  is  synony- 
mous with  SaRaR  (which  we  have 
shown  to  mean  "to  set  in  order"  or 


A  Change  of  Language       109 

"to  command"),  while  a  second 
(found  only  in  I  Chronicles  xx,  3), 
means  "to  saw,"  and  the  third  (oc- 
curring nowhere  except  in  Hosea 
ix,  12),  is  synonymous  with  an- 
other verb,  which  may  be  written 
CWuR,  expressing  the  thought  of 
departing. 

Here  it  is  necessary  to  explain 
that  the  Hebrew  language,  in  com- 
mon with  most  other  Semitic  forms 
of  speech,  not  only  has  written 
characters  to  express  the  sounds  of 
several  compound  sibilants,  in  addi- 
tion to  S  and  Sh;  but  also  has  a 
letter  to  indicate  the  sound  of  a 
third  simple  sibilant,  expressed 
above  by  Q,  which  is  a  slight 
whistle,  made  by  forcing  the 
breath  between  the  palate  and  the 
top  of  the  tongue,  held  loosely  in  a 
position  much  like  that  necessary 
for  pronouncing  R.  Its  sound  dif- 
fers from  that  of  S  almost  as  much 
as  does  the  sound  of  Sh,  and  there 
is  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing 
these  three  sibilants  one  from  an- 


no         Jacob's   New   Name 

.  other.  With  the  exception  of  the 
Samaritans,  the  Semites  keep  these 
three  letters  quite  distinct,  and 
rarely  confound  them.  In  fact,  they 
are  no  more  likely  to  do  so  than  we 
are  to  neglect  the  difference  be- 
tween Sh  and  S,  and  say  "shave" 
for  "save,"  or  "shame"  when  we 
mean  "same." 

Hosea  used  the  verb  CWuR  four 
times,  and,  in  addition  to  its  occur- 
rence in  the  twelfth  verse  of  his 
ninth  chapter,  he  employed  the 
word  SWuR  twice :  in  each  case 
the  word  that  he  selected  was  given 
precisely  its  proper  force,  without 
the  slightest  indication  of  confu- 
sion between  the  two  different 
terms.  The  possibility  that  he 
would  fail  to  distinguish  between 
the  two,  when  he  employed  SWuR 
for  the  third  time,  is  therefore  ex- 
tremely small.  Moreover,  Hosea 
had  occasion  in  the  sixth  verse  of 
his  fifth  chapter  to  speak  of  God's 
withdrawing  Himself  from  the 
children  of  Israel;  and  here  he  used 


A  Change  of  Language      in 

the  verb  ChaLaTz  for  that  purpose. 
Hence  it  is  doubly  improbable,  if 
he  meant  to  express  the  same 
thought  in  the  twelfth  verse  of  his 
ninth  chapter,  that  he  would  aban- 
don the  word  used  bef-.«r\:,  with  the 
intention  of  employing"  (JWuR  in 
its  place,  and  then  carelessly  write 
SWuR  instead. 

License  of  the  kind  which  would 
lead  to  the  translation  of  one  of 
these  two  words  when  the  other  is 
written,  would  equally  justify  treat- 
ing QaKaL,  "to  act  foolishly,"  as 
if  it  were  synonymous  with  SaKaL, 
"to  act  wisely,"  and  would  make 
David's  prayer,  recorded  in  II  Sam- 
uel xxiv,  TO.  read :  "I  have  sinned 
greatly  in  that  I  have  done;  and 
now,  I  beseech  Thee,  O  Lord,  take 
away  the  iniquity  of  Thy  servant: 
for  I  have  done  very  wisely,"  in- 
stead of  expressing  the  truth,  that 
he  had  acted  very  unwisely. 

Hosea,  after  describing  and  la- 
menting the  wickedness  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,,  announced  the  in- 


H2         Jacob's   New   Name 

evitable  consequences  of  their  in- 
iquitous course,  and  proclaimed  the 
Words  of  Jehovah:  "Woe  also  to 
them  when  I  SWuR  from  them." 
Now  if  the  Jews,  after  their  return 
from  Babylon,  had  known  the  true 
meaning  of  SWuR,  they  would 
have  given  us  the  correct  rendering, 
"Woe  also  to  them  when  I  take 
command  from  them." 

They  had  wholly  forgotten  the 
term,  however,  and  it  was  evident 
that  neither  the  force  they  had 
given  it  in  Hosea  viii,  4,  "to  appoint 
a  SaR,"  nor  that  attributed  to  it  in 
Hosea  xii,  4,  "to  be  strong,"  could 
express  its  meaning  here.  They  re- 
membered, however,  that  there  was 
another  Hebrew  word,  GhWuR, 
"to  rise  up,"  which  differed  from 
SWuR  in  only  its  initial  letter; 
and,  as  they  could  do  no  better, 
they  evidently  decided  that  this 
verb  ought  to  be  substituted  for  the 
one  they  did  not  understand.  Their 
Chaldaic  rendering  was  modified, 
however,  by  another  principle  they 


A  Change  of  Language      113 

had  adopted,  which  was  to  soften 
down  all  anthropomorphisms,  by 
which  God  is  represented  as  seeing, 
hearing,  sitting,  rising,  or  otherwise 
performing  a  bodily  action  like  a 
human  being;  so  they  changed  the 
Scriptural  statement  to,  "Woe  also 
to  them  when  I  raise  up  My  She- 
KiNaH  from  them,"  using  the  same 
Chaldaic  verb  SeLaQ,  "to  come  up, 
to  arise,"  which  occurs  in  Ezra  iv, 
12,  as  also  in  Daniel  ii,  29,  and  vii, 
3,  8  and  20.  Although  this  render- 
ing was  not  reduced  to  writing  un- 
til after  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,  it  probably  came 
down  by  oral  transmission  from 
much  earlier  times. 

When  the  Septuagint  translators 
performed  their  work,  they  found 
the  same  difficulty  in  deciding  what 
SWuR  meant;  but  they  picked  out 
the  Hebrew  word  ShAR,  "flesh," 
which,  like  the  Chaldaic  substitute, 
differed  from  the  original  text  in 
only  a  single  lejtter  (besides  the 
pointing),  as  being  the  term  for 


H4         Jacob's   New   Name 

which  the  unintelligible  SWuR  had 
probably  been  erroneously  substi- 
tuted, and  so  translated  the  pas- 
sage, "Woe  also  unto  them:  My 
flesh  is  out  from  them."  Absurd  as 
is  this  collocation  of  words,  Wal- 
ton, in  his  Latin  rendering  of  the 
Arabic  version,  represents  that  it 
was  followed  by  the  translators  into 
that  language;  but  the  truth  is  that 
his  Arabic  text  agrees  with  our 
current  English  versions. 

The  Syriac  translators  did  not 
undertake  to  amend  the  Hebrew 
text;  but,  guided  by  the  context, 
judged  that  SWuR  must  mean  "to 
take  vengeance."  Ignoring  the 
power  of  the  preposition,  they 
therefore  rendered  the  sentence: 
"Woe  to  them;  for  I  am  about  to 
take  vengeance  from  them." 

Beginning  with  Jerome,  a  long 
line  of  translators  reasoned  that 
both  the  Chaldaic  and  the  Greek 
versions  referred  to  what  was  prac- 
tically a  departure  of  Jehovah,  and 
that  all  difficulty  would  be  removed 


A  Change  of  Language      115 

by  the  assumption  (much  more 
plausible  than  either  conjecture  of 
their  predecessors),  that  SWuR 
was  here  used  as  synonymous  with 
CWuR,  "to  depart."  This  assump- 
tion was  therefore  made,  and  our 
current  versions  read  accordingly. 

The  correct  translation,  "Woe 
also  to  them  when  I  take  command 
from  them,"  shows  us  that  al- 
though, as  in  the  case  of  Jacob  him- 
self, his  descendants  had  for  a  time 
been  permitted  to  go  their  own 
way;  yet  nevertheless,  for  them  as 
for  him,  the  hour  was  to  come  when 
the  Divine  Being  would  visit  them, 
and  give  them  to  understand  that 
"God  commands." 

This  was  what  was  preached  by 
John  the  Baptist:  "Repent  ye:  for 
the  sovereignty  of  heaven  is  at 
hand."  John  the  Apostle  echoed  the 
thought  of  Hosea,  when  he  wrote: 
"Behold  He  cometh  with  clouds; 
and  every  eye  shall  see  Him,  and 
they  also  which  pierced  Him;  and 
all  kindreds  of  the  earth  shall  wail 


n6         Jacob's  New  Name 

because  of  Him.  Even  so,  Amen." 
For  a  time  our  Heavenly  Father, 
not  willing  that  any  should  perish, 
but  that  all  should  come  to  repent- 
ance, permits  the  nations  to  rage 
and  the  peoples  to  imagine  a  vain 
thing.  Nevertheless,  He  has  set 
His  King  upon  His  sacred  hill  of 
Zion,  and  in  the  fulness  of  time  He 
will  take  to  Himself  the  sovereignty 
that  is  rightfully  His. 

There  is  one  more  passage  con- 
taining the  word  SWuR  still  re- 
maining for  examination.  This  is 
not  only  of  great  importance  in  it- 
self; but  it  furnishes  confirmatory 
proof  that,  at  or  soon  after  the  time 
of  the  Jews'  return  from  Babylon, 
their  most  pious  and  scholarly  men 
did  not  fully  understand  the  an- 
cient Hebrew  language;  and  there- 
fore were  quite  incapable  of  putting 
the  Scriptures  into  their  present 
shape — a  fact  which  completely  de- 
molishes the  fundamental  theory  of 
the  skeptical  critics. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


David's  Captives 


Eminent  among  the  heroes  of 
olden  times  looms  up  the  form  of 
David,  whose  faith  in  God  was 
never  shaken. 

Through  faith  he  fled  away  from 
the  edge  of  the  sword,  when  he  was 
hunted  as  a  partridge  in  the  moun- 
tains; through  faith  he  was,  from 
weakness,  made  strong;  so  that  he 
subdued  the  kingdoms  about  him, 
and  came  in  touch  with  promised 
blessings.  Compelled  to  war,  that 
his  nation  might  take  the  position 
allotted  to  it  by  Jehovah,  he  never 
battled  otherwise  than  as  the  ser- 
vant of  the  Lord:  "It  is  God  that 
girdeth  me  with  strength;"  "He 


n8         Jacob's   New   Name 

teacheth  my  hands  to  war;"  "By 
Thee  do  I  rim  through  a  troop ;  and, 
by  my  God  do  I  leap  over  a  wall." 

Great  as  was  his  standing  as  a 
warrior  and  king,  his  rank  as  a 
poet  of  spiritual  insight,  inspired  by 
communion  with  his  God,  was  even 
greater;  and,  after  the  passage  of 
nearly  three  thousand  years,  his 
Psalms  are  still  enshrined  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people  of  the  Lord, 
as  helpful  beyond  almost  any  other 
portion  of  the  Sacred  Word;  ex- 
cepting only  the  utterances  of  our 
Saviour  Himself. 

Yet,  being  but  a  child  of  Adam, 
he  was  a  partaker  of  human  frailty. 
Drawn  away  by  his  own  lust,  and 
enticed,  he  committed  one  awful 
crime,  whose  history  coming  down 
through  all  the  intervening  ages  has 
given  great  occasion  to  the  enemies 
of  the  Lord  to  blaspheme,  even  to 
this  day.  Repenting  most  sincerely, 
he  found  the  grace  of  our  Lord  suffi- 
cient even  for  his  cleansing;  but, 
nevertheless,  sorrow  and  remorse 


David's    Captives  1 19 

never  left  him;  and,  when  seventy 
years  old,  he  died  of  senile  decrep- 
itude, prematurely  aged  and  broken 
down. 

After  his  death  he  had  this  testi- 
mony borne  to  him :  "My  servant 
David  kept  My  commandments, 
and  followed  Me  with  all  his  heart, 
to  do  that  only  which  was  right  in 
My  eyes."  "David  did  that  which 
•was  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord, 
and  turned  not  aside  from  anything 
that  He  commanded  him  all  the 
days  of  his  life,  save  only  in  the 
matter  of  Uriah  the  Hittite." 

Notwithstanding  his  ability  as  a 
warrior,  he  was,  nevertheless,  a  man 
of  exceptional  tenderness  of  heart. 
In  his  early  manhood  when  Saul, 
who  had  come  out  to  seek  his  life, 
was  in  his  power,  he  refused  to 
stretch  forth  his  hand  against  him; 
and  even  when  Saul,  still  pursuing 
him,  again  lay  helpless  before  him, 
he  for  a  second  time  declined  to  per- 
mit any  injury  to  be  done  him.  In 
later  life  when  he  had  been  ap- 


120         Jacob's   New   Name 

pointed,  as  the  minister  of  God,  to 
execute  wrath  upon  him  that  did 
evil,  he,  to  some  extent,  bore  the 
sword  in  vain;  for  he  refused  to 
punish  those  who  had  rebelled 
against  his  government,  and  over- 
looked the  crime  of  Shimei,  who 
had  cursed  the  Lord's  anointed. 

When  Joab  slew  Abner  David 
said:  "I  am  this  day  tender 
[hearted],"  and  allowed  him  to  go 
unpunished.  Even  when,  as  fre- 
quently follows  in  such  cases,  the 
murderer  again  imbrued  his  hands 
in  human  blood,  David,  weakened 
perhaps  by  the  remembrance  of  his 
cwn  guilt — in  which  Joab  had  been 
an  accomplice — still  took  no  action 
towards  cleansing  the  land  from 
the  defilement  of  innocent  blood ; 
but  left  the  magistrate's  duty  to  be 
performed  by  his  son. 

This  was  the  man  of  whom  our 
accepted  version  of  the  Bible  gives 
the  following  most  horrible  ac- 
count : 

II.  Samuel  xii,  29  and  31 :     "And 


David's    Captives  121 

David  gathered  all  the  people  to- 
gether, and  went  to  Kabbah,  and 
fought  against  it,  and  took  it;  ... 
and  he  brought  forth  the  people 
that  were  therein,  and  put  them 
under  saws,  and  under  harrows  of 
iron,  and  under  axes  of  iron,  and 
made  them  pass  through  the  brick 
kiln;  and  thus  did  he  unto  all  the 
cities  of  the  children  of  Ammon." 

I  Chronicles  xx,  3:  "And  he 
[David]  brought  out  the  people 
that  were  in  it  [Rabbah],  and  cut 
them  with  saws,  and  with  harrows 
of  iron,  and  with  axes.  Even  so 
dealt  David  with  all  the  cities  of 
the  children  of  Ammon." 

The  exact  meaning;  of  the  former 
of  these  two  passages  may  possibly 
be  questioned;  but  the  second  is 
clear  and  unmistakable,  and  the 
other  can  not  properly  be  under- 
stood otherwise  than  in  accordance 
with  it. 

The  statement  that  David  was 
guilty  of  the  awful  savagery  of  us- 
ing axes,  saws  and  harrows  to  muti- 


122         Jacob's   New   Name 

late  and  torture  his  helpless  prison- 
ers, and  that  he  also  burned  them 
in  brickkilns,  has  given  almost  as 
much  "occasion  to  the  enemies  of 
the  Lord  to  blaspheme,"  as  has  his 
crime  "in  the  matter  of  Uriah  the 
Hittite" — perhaps  quite  as  much,  or 
even  more.  Infidels  of  all  times 
have  pointed  to  this  narrative,  in 
connection  with  the  Biblical  state- 
ment, that  David  "turned  not  aside 
from  anything  that  God  com- 
manded him  all  the  days  of  his  life, 
save  only  in  the  matter  of  Uriah 
the  Hittite,"  and  have  reasoned 
therefrom  that  Jehovah,  as  revealed 
in  the  Scriptures,  delights  in  bar- 
barity, and  is  therefore  unworthy 
of  worship.  In  this  manner  a  blun- 
dering translation  of  His  Word  has 
brought  reproach  upon  His  Name. 

It  should  be  remembered  that 
this  was  not  a  case  like  that  of  the 
Palestinian  tribes  whom  the  Israel- 
ites displaced ;  tribes  whose  deprav- 
ity was  borne  with  century  after 
century,  until  their  iniquity  was 


David's    Captives  123 

"full;"  tribes  which  were  then 
driven  out  little  by  little  by  a  pest 
of  hornets,  and  the  remnants  of 
which  were  given  abundant  oppor- 
tunity to  escape,  if  they  would  only 
consent  to  do  so,  before  the  children 
of  Israel  took  complete  possession 
of  the  land — a  land  which  was 
theirs,  both  by  inheritance  from 
their  ancestors,  and  as  a  direct  gift 
from  God. 

Nor  was  the  case  of  the  Am- 
monites like  that  of  the  Amalekites, 
who  came  forth  from  their  own 
country  to  wage  an  unprovoked 
war  upon  the  children  of  Israel, 
merely  because  they  were  the  peo- 
ple of  Jehovah;  a  nation  which, 
when  defeated  in  open  warfare, 
dogged  the  footsteps  of  the  Israel- 
ites, and  ''smote  the  hindmost"  of 
them,  even  "all  that  were  feeble," 
when  they  were  "faint  and  weary" : 
a  nation  whose  implacable  hostil- 
ity, evidenced  by  the  plottings 
(which  God  foresaw)  of  Haman, 
"the  son  of  Hammedatha  the  Agag- 


124         Jacob's   New   Name 

ite,"  would  have  entirely  destroyed 
the  Hebrew  race,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  direct  interposition  of  the 
Lord  Himself. 

As  descendants  of  Lot,  the  Am- 
monites were  distantly  connected 
with  the  Jews,  and  Jehovah  had 
commanded  His  people  neither  to 
distress  nor  meddle  with  them.  Al- 
though they  had  warred  upon  the 
Israelites,  it  was  only  to  meet  de- 
feat at  the  hands  of  Jephthah,  and 
again  at  those  of  Saul,  and  they  had 
been  no  more  hostile  than  other 
surrounding  nations.  Their  king 
Nahash  had  "shown  kindness  unto" 
David  in  his  time  of  need,  and  Sho- 
bi  his  son  was  one  of  the  three  men 
who  freely  supplied  David  and  his 
little  army  with  provisions,  when 
they  hastily  fled  to  Mahanaim  to 
escape  from  Absalom,  only  a  short 
time  before.  After  all  this  the 
abuse  of  the  Israelitish  ambassa- 
dors, by  Hanan  the  succeeding  king, 
provoking  as  it  was,  could  not  jus- 
tify the  unique  and  incredible  bar- 


David's    Captives  125 

barity  which  our  English  transla- 
tors of  the  Bible  ascribe  to  the  Jew- 
ish ruler. 

The  recent  revisers  made  no  im- 
portant change  in  the  text  of  either 
II  Samuel  xii,  3i,,or  I  Chronicles 
xx,  3,  and  did  not  even  suggest  a 
modification  of  the  last-mentioned 
account.  In  the  margin  of  the  for- 
mer of  these  two  passages,  how- 
ever, they  proposed  the  following  as 
a  possible  reading: 

"He  brought  forth  the  people  that 
were  therein,  and  put  them  to  saws, 
and  to  harrows  of  iron,  and  to  axes 
of  iron,  and  [with  a  slight  change 
in  the  Hebrew  text]  made  them 
labour  at  the  brick  kiln  [or  brick 
mould]." 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  this 
can  not  express  the  true  meaning, 
if  the  translation  of  the  correspond- 
ing passage  in  Chronicles  is  to  re- 
main unchanged — as  they  left  it. 

On  examining  the  ancient  Bibli- 
cal translations  we  find  that  the 
Chaldaic  targum,  the  Greek  Sep- 


126         Jacob's   New  Name 

ttiagint  and  the  Latin  Vulgate  all 
give  accounts  agreeing  with  our 
current  English  versions;  in  many 
respects  so  minutely,  that  the  ques- 
tion at  once  suggests  itself,  whether 
our  rendering  was  not  founded 
rather  upon  these  than  upon  the 
original  Hebrew  text. 

The  Syriac  and  Arabic  versions, 
however,  present  a  most  remark- 
able difference  in  their  narrative  of 
the  events  following  the  capture  of 
Kabbah.  The  Syriac  statement  in 
the  Second  Book  of  Samuel  reads: 

"And  the  people  who  were  in  it 
he  brought  forth,  and  threw  them 
into  fetters  of  iron,  and  chains  of 
iron,  and  made  them  pass  through 
a  heifer." 

The  account  in  First  Chronicles 
is  much  fuller: 

"And  the  people  who  were  in  it 
he  brought  forth,  and  bound  them 
with  chains  and  with  fetters  of  iron, 
and  with  bars  and  in  prisons,  and 
thus  he  bound  them  all.  And  so  he 
did  to  all  the  sons  of  men  who  were 


David's    Captives  127 

found  in  the  towns  of  the  children 
of  Ammon,  and  he  did  not  kill  a 
man  of  them;  but  he  removed  them, 
and  made  them  dwell  in  the  towns 
of  the  land  of  Israel." 

With  reference  to  the  statement 
that  David  made  his  prisoners  "pass 
through  a  heifer,"  it  should  be  re- 
membered that  this  was  the  cus- 
tomary manner  of  entering  into  and 
confirming  a  covenant.  In  the  fif- 
teenth chapter  of  Genesis  we  have  a 
full  account  of  the  way  in  which 
"the  Lord  made  a  covenant  with 
Abram,"  by  "passing"  (in  the  ap- 
pearance of  "a  smoking  furnace  and 
a  flaming  torch"),  "between  the 
pieces"  of  "an  heifer"  and  other  sac- 
rificial victims,  which  Abram  had 
prepared  in  accordance  with  the 
Divine  command.  In  the  thirty- 
fourth  chapter  of  Jeremiah  we  are 
informed,  that  the  violation  of  cove- 
nant obligations  by  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple caused  Jehovah's  severe  denun- 
ciation : 

"I  will  give   the   men    that   have 


128         Jacob's   New   Name 

transgressed  My  covenant,  which 
have  not  performed  the  words  of 
the  covenant  which  they  made  be- 
fore Me,  when  they  cut  the  calf  in 
twain  and  passed  between  the  parts 
thereof;  the  princes  of  Judah  and 
the  princes  of  Jerusalem;  the  eu- 
nuchs, and  the  priests,  and  all  the 
people  of  the  land,  which  passed  be- 
tween the  parts  of  the  calf;  I  will 
even  give  them  into  the  hand  of 
their  enemies,  and  into  the  hand  of 
them  that  seek  their  life." 

The  Syriac  statement  therefore 
presents  no  difficulties  to  one  who 
understands  the  above-mentioned 
practice  of  confirming  a  covenant 
by  "passing  through  a  heifer."  It 
happens,  however,  that  the  radical 
letters  of  the  Syriac  term  MaUSh- 
oCHA,  "a  heifer"  (a  word  which, 
except  for  the  fact  that  it  is  given  a 
feminine  form,  is  a  mere  translitera- 
tion of  the  Greek  moschos,  "a 
call"),  are  precisely  the  same  as 
those  of  MaUShCHaA,  "a  measure." 
It  seems,  also,  that  in  the  times — 


David's  Captives  129 

comparatively  recent  —  when  the 
Syriac  text  was  "pointed,"  the  men 
who  did  that  work  overlooked  the 
ancient  method  of  making  a  cove- 
nant. They  therefore  pointed  the 
word  in  question  erroneously,  and 
made  the  text  state  that  David 
caused  his  prisoners  to  "pass 
through  a  measure."  In  Walton's 
Latin  translation  of  the  Syriac  text 
an  effort  was  made  to  give  sense  to 
this,  by  saying  that  David  made 
them  pass  through  per  mensura,  or 
"by  measure." 

Turning  now  to  the  Arabic  ver- 
sion we  find  the  following  account 
in  the  Second  Book  of  Samuel : 

"He  brought  forth  all  the  people 
who  were  in  it  [Rabbah],  and  he 
bound  them  with  chains  and  with 
girdles,  and  he  made  them  pass  be- 
fore him  to  determine  their  fate." 
The  translator  of  this  into  Latin 
for  Walton's  Polyglot  evidently 
failed  to  understand  the  latter  part 
of  the  sentence;  for  he  made  the 
passage  read : 


130        Jacob's  New  Name 

"All  the  people  who  were  in  it  he 
brought  forth,  and  he  bound  them 
with  chains  and  with  ropes ;  then 
he  made  them  pass  before  his  face 
in  the  shape  of  a  certain  measure." 
This  peculiar  twist  seems  owing 
partly  to  the  error,  already-men- 
tioned, in  the  Syriac  pointing;  but 
a  factor  of  equal,  or  greater,  impor- 
tance may  be  found  in  the  Septua- 
gint  rendering  of  one  of  the  clauses 
of  the  passage  which  we  have  been 
considering.  This  reads :  ''He  led 
them  about  through  the  plinthion." 
Plinthion  is  a  term  applicable  either 
to  the  making  of  bricks,  to  a  little 
brick,  to  a  brickyard  or  to  a  brick- 
kiln; and  in  its  feminine  form  it  is 
also  a  designation  for  a  military 
column,  square  or  phalanx.  It  seems 
very  probable  that  the  feminine  and 
the  neuter  forms  were  occasionally 
confused,  and  that  the  Latins  some- 
times borrowed  this  designation  for 
a  military  phalanx,  and  translated  it 
by  their  word  later,  "a  brick;" 
for  Jerome's  version  states  that 


David's  Captives  131 

David  led  his  prisoners  along  "in 
the  shape  of  a  later,"  and  it 
seems  far  more  probable  that  he 
meant  thereby,  that  they  were  in 
the  form  of  a  military  phalanx,  than 
that  they  were  in  the  shape  of  a 
brick. 

However  this  may  be,  the  cir- 
cumstantial evidence  indicates, 
that  Walton's  translator  took  the 
words  "in  the  shape  of"  from  the 
Vulgate,  and  the  words  "a  measure" 
from  an  erroneous  rendering  of  the 
Syriac ;  for  they  certainly  do  not  oc- 
cur in  the  Arabic  text. 

The  Arabic  version  of  I  Chron- 
icles xx,  3,  reads : 

"The  people  in  it  he  brought 
forth,  and  bound  them  in  chains, 
every  one,  and  so  he  did  with  the 
rest  of  the  children  of  Ammon ;  and 
he  did  not  kill  a  man  of  them." 

So  far  as  it  goes,  this  seems  a 
shortened  form  of  the  Syriac  ver- 
sion; for  the  two  accounts  agree 
word  for  word,  except  for  the  omis- 
sion in  the  Arabic  text  of  the  Syriac 


132         Jacob's   New  Name 

mention  of  "fetters  of  iron  and  bars 
and  prisons,"  and  the  final  state- 
ment, that  David  "removed  them, 
and  made  them  dwell  in  the  towns 
of  the  land  of  Israel." 

Especially  noticeable  is  the  exact 
agreement  of  the  two  translations 
in  the  assurance  "He  did  not  kill  a 
man  of  them." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Original  Record 


In  our  study  of  the  Bible  record, 
to  learn  the  true  nature  of  David's 
treatment  of  his  prisoners,  we  have 
necessarily  given  special  attention 
to  the  Syriac  and  Arabic  versions  of 
the  texts  under  consideration.  The 
fact  that  both  languages  are  Semi- 
tic, and  therefore  resemble  the  He- 
brew far  more  than  does  the  Greek, 
Latin,  or  any  other  Indo-European 
tongue,  makes  these  translations  of 
the  Bible  of  unequaled  value,  as  aids 
in  reaching  a  correct  decision  in  re- 
gard to  the  meaning  of  doubtful 
words  or  phrases  in  the  original 
text;  for  the  general  structure  of 
these  three  Semitic  tongues  is  prac- 


134         Jacob's   New   Name 

tically  the  same,  and,  in  many  cases 
the  word  used  in  one  of  them  to  de- 
scribe a  certain  object,  or  to  express 
some  particular  thought,  is  so  much 
like  the  corresponding  terms  in  the 
others,  that  it  is  easily  intelligible  in 
either  tongue. 

The  Chaldaic  language  shares 
this  advantage  with  them;  but  the 
targums  were  materially  affected  by 
Hebrew  traditions  and  doctines, 
as  well  as  by  the  common  use  of  the 
Septuagint  among  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple ;  while  the  Arabic  and  Syriac 
versions  were  made  direct  from  the 
Hebrew  text,  and  at  first  were  com- 
paratively free  from  these  influ- 
ences. 

It  is  true  that  various  revisions 
have  since  been  made,  by  which  the 
more  modern  texts  have  been 
brought  into  greater  conformity 
either  to  the  Chaldaic  targums,  to 
the  Latin  Vulgate,  or,  more  espec- 
ially, to  the  Septuagint  version;  but 
much  of  this  tampering  can  be  dis- 
covered and  removed  by  consulting 


The  Original  Record        135 

the  most  ancient  texts  with  which 
we  are  acquainted. 

It  is  not  known  just  how  old  the 
Syriac  translation  called  the  "Pe- 
shitta"  is ;  but  it  is  probably  the  ver- 
sion mentioned  by  Melito  of  Sar- 
dis,  who  lived  in  the  second  century 
A.  D.  Back  of  this  time  Josephus 
(Ant.  xx,  chap.  2,  sec.  4)  refers  to 
the  reading  of  the  Law  by  Izates, 
king  of  Adiabene,  who  sent  his 
sons  to  Jerusalem  to  study  the  lan- 
guage and  learning  of  the  Jews; 
and  there  seems  a  strong  probabil- 
ity, that  the  book  which  the  his- 
torian describes  him  as  reading  was 
a  Syriac  version  of  at  least  a  por- 
tion of  the  Scriptures.  ,  Even  if  the 
translation  was  made  by  a  number 
of  different  men,  a  part  at  a  time, 
and  was  not  completed  for  several 
hundred  years,  the  latest  portions 
date  at  least  as  far  back  as  the 
earliest  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era. 

The  Arabic  version  seems  not  to 
be  as  ancient;  but  Mohammed's  at- 


136         Jacob's   New   Name 

qaintance  with  Jewish  history  and 
Biblical  characters,  although  it  may 
in  part  have  been  derived  from  tra- 
ditions and  scraps  of  religious 
knowledge  current  among  his  peo- 
ple, can  hardly  be  fully  explained 
otherwise  than  by  his  possession  of 
an  Arabic  translation  of  at  least  a 
part  of  the  Bible;  and  a  tradition 
still  prevails  that  in  his  days  it  was 
the  custom  of  the  Jews  dwelling  in 
Arabia  to  read  their  Law  aloud  in 
Hebrew  and  interpret  it  into  Ara- 
bic for  the  benefit  of  the  listening 
Ishmaelites,  just  as  in  Palestine  a 
Chaldaic  translation  was  similarly 
given  for  the  enlightenment  of  the 
common  people  there.  The  text 
printed  by  Walton  is  that  of  Saadia 
Gaon,  who  lived  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  ninth  and  the  first  half  of  the 
tenth  century.  His  translation  was 
affected  somewhat  by  the  Chaldaic 
targums  and  the  Syriac  versions; 
but  was  almost  free  from  any  direct 
influence  by  the  Septuagint  or  Vul- 
gate. 


The  Original  Record         137 

For  the  reasons  already  explained, 
we  may  feel  quite  confident  that 
the  mention  of  chains  in  both  the 
Syriac  and  the  Arabic  versions  was 
occasioned  by  the  presence  in  the 
Hebrew  text  of  some  word  which 
their  translators  all  believed  to  have 
that  meaning;  and,  although  they 
did  not  agree  as  to  just  what  it  was 
that  David  caused  his  prisoners  to 
"pass  through,"  yet  none  of  them 
thought  it  to  be  a  brickkiln. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  Hebrew 
text,  and  try  to  learn  precisely  what 
it  really  says;  representing  by  their 
English  equivalents  all  the  words  of 
which  the  meaning  is  certain,  and 
using  our  ordinary  alphabet  to 
transliterate  those  that  are  doubt- 
ful :  the  result  is  as  follows  : 

II.  Samuel  xii,  31 :  "And  the  pop- 
ulace which  was  therein  he  brought 
forth  and  SWuM-ed  BaMeGeRaH, 
and  in  [or,  with]  ChaRiTz  [plural] 
of  iron,  and  in  [or,  with]  MaGZe- 
RaH-s  of  iron,  and  made  them  pass 
in  [or  into,  or  with]  MaLKeN." 


138         Jacob's   New   Name 

I  Chronicles  xx,  3 :  "And  the  pop- 
ulace which  was  therein  he  brought 
forth  and  SWuR-ed  BaMeGeRaH, 
and  in  [or,  with]  ChaRiTz  [plural] 
of  iron,  and  in  [or  with]  MeGe- 
RaH-s." 

There  is  scarcely  another  state- 
ment of  the  Bible  so  obscure  and 
difficult  as  this;  for  here  we  have 
all  that  can  be  said  with  absolute 
certainty  as  to  the  meaning  of  these 
passages,  and  we  are  left  with  noth- 
ing but  human  reason  and  conjec- 
ture to  help  us  reach  an  understand- 
ing of  the  doubtful  words. 

On  comparing  the  two  passages 
we  will  at  once  see  that,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  the  account  in  Chronicles  is, 
word  for  word,  the  same  as  that  in 
Samuel,  with  the  exception  of  two 
words,  and  that  these  each  differ  in 
the  two  narratives  only  by  a  single 
letter.  The  agreement  is  so  close, 
that  it  cannot  be  accounted  for, 
otherwise  than  by  the  supposition, 
either  that  the  account  in  Chron- 
icles was  copied  from  that  in  Sam- 


The  Original  Record         139 

uel,  or  else  that  the  two  accounts 
were  both  borrowed  from  some 
earlier  narrative. 

That  earlier  records  existed,  from 
which  the  historical  books  of  the 
Bible  were  partly  compiled,  is  ex- 
plained to  us  by  the  Scriptures 
themselves. 

II  Samuel  i,  18:  "And  David 
.  .  .  bade  them  teach  the  children 
of  Judah  [the  song  of]  the  bow : 
behold  it  is  written  in  the  book  of 
Jashar." 

I.  Chronicles  xxix,  29:  "Now  the 
utterances  of  David  the  king,  first 
and  last,  behold  they  are  written  in 
the  utterances  of  Samuel  the  seer, 
and  in  the  utterances  of  Nathan  the 
prophet,  and  in  the  utterances  of 
Gad  the  vision-seer." 

I  Kings  xi,  41 :  "Now  the  rest  of 
the  utterances  of  Solomon,  even  all 
that  he  did,  and  his  wisdom,  are 
they  not  written  in  the  book  of  the 
utterances  of  Solomon?" 

This  is  explained  more  fully  in  II 
Chronicles  ix,  29 :  "Now  the  rest  of 


140         Jacob's   New  Name 

the  utterances  of  Solomon,  first  and 
last,  are  they  not  written  in  the  ut- 
terances of  Nathan  the  prophet,  and 
in  the  prophecy  of  Ahijah  the  Shil- 
onite,  and  in  the  visions  of  Iddo  the 
vision-seer  concerning  Jeroboam 
the  son  of  Nebat?" 

That  Iddo  wrote  another  book, 
"concerning  genealogies,"  is  stated 
in  II  Chronicles  xii,  15,  where  refer- 
ence is  also  made  to  the  utterances 
of  Shemaiah  the  prophet. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  men- 
tion all  the  numerous  statements  of 
this  kind  occurring  in  the  Scrip- 
tures; but  it  may  be  well  to  call  at- 
tention to  the  frequent  references, 
all  through  both  books  of  Kings  to 
"The  Book  of  the  Chronicles  of  the 
Kings  of  Israel,"  and  to  "The  Book 
of  the  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of 
Judah,"  which  certainly  were  not 
the  books  entitled  "Chronicles"  now 
found  in  our  Bibles. 

From  Esther  vi,  i,  it  appears  that 
Ahasuerus,  king  of  Persia  and  Me- 
dia, had  a  "Book  of  Records  of  the 


The  Original  Record         141 

Chronicles"  of  his  kingdom,  in 
which  an  account  of  the  important 
events  of  his  times  was  preserved. 
That  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah 
also  had  official  historiographers, 
who  recorded  such  matters  as 
affected  governmental  affairs,  seems 
equally  clear.  See,  for  instance,  I 
Chronicles  -ix,  i :  "All  Israel  were 
reckoned  by  genealogies;  and,  be- 
hold, they  are  written  in  the  book  of 
the  Kings  of  Israel." 

II  Chronicles  xx,  34:  "Now  the 
rest  of  the  utterances  of  Jehosha- 
phat,  first  and  last,  behold  they  are 
written  in  'The  Utterances  of  Jehu 
the  Son  of  Hanani,'  which  was 
taken  up  in  'The  Book  of  the  Kings 
of  Israel/  " 

II  Chronicles  xxiv,  27:  "His 
[Joash's]  sons,  and  the  greatness  of 
the  burdens  upon  him,  and  the 
founding  of  the  house  of  God,  be- 
hold, they  are  described  in  the  com- 
mentary of  'The  Book  of  the 
Kings.' ' 

The  history  of  recent  events  al- 


142         Jacob's   New   Name 

ways  occupies  a  large  place  in  the 
minds  of  the  people ;  but,  as  time 
goes  on,  newer  occurrences  sup- 
plant the  remembrance  of  earlier 
affairs,  which  thus  lose  much  of 
their  former  importance.  In  the 
days  immediately  following  the 
reigns  of  David  and  Solomon  the 
people  were  naturally  interested  in 
a  fuller  record  of  the  affairs  of  those 
times  than  would  now  be  of  use  to 
us.  The  same  loving  care  of  our 
Heavenly  Father  which  gave  to 
them  the  records  made  by  His  ser- 
vants Nathan,  Gad,  Iddo,  Abijah 
and  Shemaiah,  also  inspired  holy 
men  of  a  later  time,  working  under 
the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to 
pick  out  of  these  earlier  narratives 
all  their  truths  of  permanent  service 
to  mankind,  while  the  remainder,  of 
merely  temporary  value,  was  al- 
lowed to  sink  into  oblivion. 

This  is  a  very  different  thing, 
however,  from  the  absurd  fancies  of 
the  self-conceited  "higher"  critics, 
whose  fundamental  theories  are 


The  Original  Record         143 

based  upon  the  unfounded  assump- 
tion that  the  Bible  is  wholly  of 
human  origin. 

This  apparent  digression  has 
seemed  necessary  to  explain  the 
probability,  that  the  two  accounts 
which  we  have  been  considering, 
found  in  Second  Samuel  and  First 
Chronicles,  respectively,  were 
both  copied  from  some  earlier  rec- 
ord, and  that  both  texts  must  there- 
fore have  read,  originally,  precisely 
the  same.  Where  the  earliest  manu- 
scripts to  which  we  can  refer  repre- 
sent that  Samuel  used  the  verb 
SWuM,  and  that  Chronicles,  in  the 
same  place  in  its  parallel  account, 
used  the  verb  SWuR,  it  is  evident 
that  the  variance  is  due  to  the 
copyist's  mistake  in  writing  out 
one  of  these  two  passages,  and 
that  the  original  text  had  the 
same  word  in  both  places.  Al- 
though our  English  letters  R  and 
M  do  not  at  all  resemble  each  other ; 
and  although  the  same  thing  is  true 
in  regard  to  the  square  characters, 


144         Jacob's   New   Name 

borrowed  from  Chaldea,  with  which 
Hebrew  is  now  written,  yet  in  the 
earlier  Hebrew  alphabet,  still  used 
— with  but  slight  modifications — by 
the  Samaritans,  these  two  letters 
are  much  alike,  and  might  easily  be 
confused. 

In  the  earthly  days  of  our  Saviour 
the  Hebrew  was  customarily  writ- 
ten as  at  present;  for  He  refers  to 
the  "jot"  as  the  smallest  of  the  let- 
ters (which  is  true  in  regard  to  the 
square  characters — while  in  the  so- 
called  Samaritan  writing  the  I  is 
one  of  the  largest  letters)  ;  and  He 
also  mentions  the  "tittle,"  with 
which  the  square  characters  are 
sometimes  ornamented — as  an  as- 
sistance in  distinguishing  one  letter 
from  another  of  very  similar  ap- 
pearance; while  the  earlier  style  of 
writing  has  nothing  of  the  kind. 

In  fact,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  the  Jews  brought  the 
Chaldean  characters  with  them 
when  they  returned  from  their 
Babylonian  exile ;  and,  notwith- 


The  Original  Record         145 

standing  the  fact  that  the  earlier 
alphabet  was  still  remembered,  and 
was  used  upon  coins  for  a  number 
of  centuries  later,  yet  the  "up-to- 
date"  scholars  of  the  time  would 
naturally  prefer  the  more  recent 
style  of  writing,  and  would  use  it 
in  their  manuscripts. 

The  confusion  between  the  two 
words  SWuR  and  SWuM,  in  the 
narration  that  we  have  been  con- 
sidering, therefore  probably  origi- 
nated at  a  time  but  little,  if  any, 
later  than  that  of  Ezra;  and  it 
would  necessarily  be  increased  by 
the  fact,  shown  in  chapter  VI,. 
that  the  word  SWuR  was  at  that 
time  so  entirely  obsolete  that  the 
best  Hebrew  scholars  failed  to  rec- 
ognize its  true  meaning. 

While  in  Hosea  ix,  12,  they  attri- 
buted to  it  the  erroneous  meaning 
"to  depart,"  they  treated  it  in  First 
Chronicles  xx,  3,  as  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent word,  and  gave  to  it  the 
meaning  "to  saw;"  being  guided 
partly  by  their  conception  of  the 


146         Jacob's   New  Name 

context,  and  partly  by  the  occur- 
rence in  Isaiah  x.  15,  of  the  word 
MSOR,  meaning  "a  saw."  By  mis- 
pointing  this,  so  as  to  make  it  read 
MaSsWoR,  instead  of  MaShWoR 
(which  the  name  of  this  tool  in 
other  Semitic  languages  indicates  to 
be  the  correct  Hebrew  spelling) 
they  could  consider  it  to  be  derived 
from  a  hypothetical,  obsolete  root 
SUR:  having  laid  this  erroneous 
foundation,  they  could  then  erect 
upon  it  the  theory  that  a  verb 
SWuR,  meaning  "to  saw,"  might 
be  derived  from  it;  and  that  in  this 
particular  passage — but  in  no  other 
— the  verb  of  that  form  should  be 
thus  understood. 

Unfortunately  for  this  theory, 
however,  its  application  to  First 
Chronicles  xx,  3,  results  in  making 
this  passage  read:  "He  brought 
out  the  people  who  were  in  it,  and 
sawed  them  with  saws,  and  with 
harrows  of  iron,  and  with  axes."  Be- 
ing unwilling  to  speak  of  "sawing" 
with  harrows  and  axes,  our  transla- 


The  Original  Record        147 

tors  resorted  to  a  little  verbal  jug- 
glery, and,  absolutely  without  au- 
thority, attributed  to  the  verb  the 
broad  general  meaning  "to  cut" — in 
any  way  whatever;  regardless  of 
the  fact  that  its  alleged  derivation, 
and  its  definition  in  their  lexicons, 
restricts  it  to  the  narrow  specific 
meaning  of  cutting  with  a  saw  only. 

When  considering  the  question 
as  to  whether  SWuM  or  SWuR 
was  the  word  contained  in  the  orig- 
inal record,  we  find  that  the  former 
not  only  fits  reasonably  well  into 
the  text;  but  that  it  is  also  an  ex- 
ceedingly common  word,  which  oc- 
curs in  the  Bible  some  six  hundred 
times.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
SWUR  is  a  very  uncommon  word, 
which,  in  this  form  (with  three  dif- 
ferent meanings  attributed  to  it), 
occurs  in  only  four  other  passages; 
while  even  if  we  add  the  cases  in 
which  what  is  really  the  same  verb 
appears  in  other  forms,  as  SaRaH 
or  SaRaR,  the  total  list  comes  to 
only  a  dozen. 


148         Jacob's   New   Name 

Now  if  the  well-known  SWuM 
was  the  original  term,  there  would 
be  no  temptation  whatever  to  sub- 
stitute for  it  the  rare  and  unintelli- 
gible word  SWuR;  while  if  the  lat- 
ter was  the  term  used  in  the  text, 
and  its  last  letter  was  smeared, 
blurred,  or  partly  erased,  in  the 
ancient  manuscript  followed  by  the 
men  who  first  made  the  translations 
into  Greek  and  Chaldaic,  they 
would  be  almost  sure  to  read  the 
blurred  word  SWuM  rather  than 
SWuR.  That  the  Syriac  and  Ara- 
bic translators  found  SWuR,  and 
not  SWuM,  in  the  Hebrew  text  of 
the  manuscripts  from  which  they 
translated,  seems  evident  from  the 
fact  that  their  rendition  of  the  word 
in  Second  Samuel  xii,  31,  reads 
"threw,"  or  "bound,"  which  they 
might  guess  to  be  the  meaning  of 
the  unknown  SWuR;  while  they 
must  have  been  well  acquainted 
with  the  common  Hebrew  word 
SWuM,  and,  if  they  had  found  it  in 
their  Hebrew  manuscripts,  they 


The  Original  Record         149 

could  not  properly  translate  it 
otherwise  than  "put,"  "set," 
"placed"  or  "made." 

We  may,  therefore,  feel  reason- 
ably confident,  that  the  original 
word  was  SWuR :  and  our  previous 
study,  in  the  second  chapter  of  this 
work,  has  shown  us  precisely  what 
this  means.  Back  of  its  later  mean- 
ing "to  order,  to  command/"  there 
still  remained  the  original,  funda- 
mental thought  of  "ordering"  by 
"setting  in  order,  or  arranging"- 
the  thought  of  assigning  some  spe- 
cific duty  to  each  of  the  various 
members  of  a  band  of  men.  This  is 
clearly  and  unmistakably  the  mean- 
ing in  the  account  that  we  have 
been  considering.  Its  first  clause 
should,  therefore,  be  read  as  fol- 
lows : 

"And  the  populace  which  was 
therein  he  brought  forth  and  as- 
signed [or,  detailed]"— some  to  one 
work  or  fate;  some  to  another;  but 
each  to  something  specific.  This 
was  dimly  seen  by  the  Arabic  trans- 


150        Jacob's  New  Name 

lator,  who  added  to  his  version  the 
statement  not  found  elsewhere : 
"He  made  them  pass  before  him  to 
determine  their  fate." 

The  nature  of  the  several  works, 
or  fates,  to  which  David  assigned 
his  prisoners  will  be  considered  in 
the  following  chapters. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


The  Work  of  the  Captives 


For  the  reasons  hereinbefore 
fully  explained,  our  study  of  the 
passages  in  question  has  led  to 
the  conclusion,  which  certainly 
seems  to  be  reasonably  well  estab- 
lished, that  in  the  original  text  of 
Second  Samuel  xii,  31,  and  First 
Chronicles  xx,  3,  the  statement  was 
made  that  David  brought  forth  the 
populace  of  Rabbah  and  assigned, 
or  detailed,  each  one  of  them  to 
some  specific  work  or  fate,  of  which 
we  may  expect  to  find  a  description 
in  the  remainder  of  the  account. 

First  comes  the  phrase  BaMe- 
GeGRaH :  here  the  introduction  by 
the  Syriac  translators  of  the  words 


152         Jacob's   New   Name 

"in  prisons"  appears  to  indicate  that 
they  understood  this  compound   to 
consist   of    BeMO    "in"   or   "with/' 
and    GeRaH,    which   they    seem    to 
have  regarded  as  a  variant  form  of 
GeRuTh,    a    khan,    caravansary    or 
walled    enclosure.      By    all    others, 
however,  this  compound  has  always 
been  understood  to  commence  with 
the    inseparable    proposition    '"Be"; 
of  which  the  fundamental  meaning 
is  "in"  or  "within."    Like  the  Greek 
en,  it  passes  over  into  the  sense  "by 
means  of";   and  the   Hebrew   term 
drifts  further  into  an  expression  of 
the  various  relations  which  we  de- 
note by  "with,"  as  well  as  into  some 
other   meanings   which   can   not   be 
thought  applicable  in  this  case.     It 
never  properly  means  "under;"  for, 
although  it  is  so  translated  in  such 
phrases   as    "under   the   wing"   and 
"the   waters   under  the   earth,"  yet 
the  thought  expressed  in  the  origi- 
nal text  is  not  correctly  brought  out 
in  our  current  versions. 

In  connection  with  the  body  the 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  153 

wing  forms  a  complete  refuge,  so 
that  the  chick  within  this  shelter  is 
not  only  protected  against  any  evil 
which  may  threaten  it  from  above, 
but  is  also  fully  guarded  upon  all 
sides.  The  Hebrew  phrase  consid- 
ers the  chick  as  resting  secure  with- 
in this  refuge,  and  not  as  merely 
lying  under  a  roof  which  protects  it 
only  from  above. 

The  waters  which  our  translators 
describe  as  under  the  earth  are  sim- 
ply bodies  of  water,  each  of  which 
is  enclosed  within  the  cup  formed 
by  the  surrounding  land;  for  the 
Hebrews  knew  nothing  of  the 
ocean,  and  all  the  bodies  of  water 
with  which  they  were  acquainted 
were  thus  practically  encircled. 

The  use  of  the  preposition  "un- 
der" in  an  English  translation  of 
the  passages  we  are  considering  is 
therefore  absolutely  unwarranted. 
If  the  following  noun  is  of  such  a 
nature  that  "in"  or  "within"  can 
properly  be  used  before  it,  that  is 
the  rendering  which  the  Hebrew 


154         Jacob's   New   Name 

"Be"  should  here  be  given.  If  not, 
our  word  "with"  will  almost  cer- 
tainly express  the  true  relation,  as 
is  shown  by  its  occurrence  in 
phrases  translated  "With  an  awl;" 
"with  the  ax;"  "with  the  ox-goad;" 
"with  the  mattock,"  etc.,  etc. 

MeGeRaH,  the  remaining  portion 
of  the  compound  in  question,  occurs 
elsewhere  only  in  First  Kings  vii, 
9;  where  the  connection  shows  it  to 
be  the  name  of  some  kind  of  a  tool 
employed  for  cutting  or  dressing 
stone. 

"All  these  [buildings  erected  by 
Solomon]  were  of  costly  stone,  even 
of  hewn  stone  according  to  meas- 
ure, GaRaR-ed  with  a  MeGeRah" — 
not  under  a  MeGeRaH,  be  it  ob- 
served. It  should  also  be  noted 
that,  if  MeGeRaH  meant  a  "saw," 
and  if  the  writer  of  Second  Samuel 
intended  to  state  that  the  people 
were  sawed  with  saws,  he  would  be 
almost  certain  to  write,  as  in  this 
last  quoted  passage,  that  they  were 
GaRaRed  with  a  MeGeRaH;  in- 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  155 

stead  of  using  the  verb  SWuR;  for 
Hebrew  writers  considered  it  a 
special  beauty  of  expression,  to  em- 
ploy in  close  connection  a  noun  and 
a  verb  both  derived  from  the  same 
root. 

The  verb  GaRaR,  from  the  root 
of  which  the  name  of  the  tool  was 
derived,  occurs  in  only  the  follow- 
ing passages : 

Lev.  xi,  7:  "The  swine  .  .  . 
cheweth  not  [or,  bringeth  not  up] 
the  cud." 

Prov.  xxi,  7:  "The  violence  of 
the  wicked  shall  sweep  them  away." 

Jer.  xxx,  23:  "A  sweeping  tem- 
pect." 

Heb.  i,  15:  "He  sweepeth  them 
up  in  his  net." 

The  kindred  verb  GaRaH  means 
"to  stir  up,"  and  the  noun  GeRaH 
is  used  to  describe  the  "cud"  of  a 
ruminating  animal. 

Another  word  which  is  appar- 
ently cognate  is  found  in  its  He- 
brew use  only  in  Isaiah  xxvii,  9: 
"He  makes  all  the  stones  of  the  al- 


156         Jacob's   New  Name 

tar  as  GIR  stones  which  are  shat- 
tered." As  the  same  word  appears 
in  the  Chaldaic  text  of  Daniel  v,  5, 
and  there  means  "plaster,"  our 
translators  have  rendered  it  "chalk" 
in  their  version  of  the  former  pas- 
sage; but  Isaiah  apparently  alluded 
to  the  small  chips  or  dust  produced 
by  dressing  stone. 

In  Exodus  xx,  25,  the  command 
was  given :  "If  an  altar  of  stones 
thou  make  for  Me,  thou  shalt  not 
build  such  of  hewn  stone;  for  thy 
sword  hast  thou  waved  over  it  and 
thou  hast  polluted  it."  Isaiah  indi- 
cated the  complete  profanation  of 
the  altars  erected  to  idols,  by  saying 
that  their  stones  should  not  only 
suffer  the  pollution  of  being  cut  by 
tools,  but  that,  instead  of  consist- 
ing of  the  hewn  stones  so  cut  into 
shape,  they  should  rather  resemble 
a  heap  of  the  worthless  fragments, 
chips  and  dust  resulting  from  that 
process. 

Returning  now  to  the  word 
MeGeRaH,  we  may  regard  it  as  the 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  157 

name   of   some    tool    or    implement 
used  for  cutting  or  dressing  stone 
by  a  sweeping  motion,  and  produc- 
ing small  chips  or  dust.     A  stone- 
saw  seems  to  answer  this  descrip- 
tion ;  and  the  term  may  therefore  be 
translated  accordingly;  but  it  does 
not  necessarily  follow  that  the  word 
is  in  any  way  applicable  to  a  wood- 
saw.    The  latter  has  teeth  by  means 
of  which  its  cutting  is  done ;  but  the 
former    consists    merely    of   a    thin 
strip  of  metal,  held  in  place  by  a 
suitable    frame,    and    rubbed    back 
and    forth    over    the    stone;    thus 
grinding  its  way  in  by  the  attrition 
of  sand  placed  beneath  its  smooth 
edge ;  it  never  has  teeth ;  for,  if  it 
were    furnished    with    them,    they 
would  be  quickly  dulled  and  ground 
down.      The    resemblance    between 
the   two   tools   is    therefore    merely 
superficial,   and   the   fact   that  both 
are    given    the    same    name    in    the 
English   language    does   not  justify 
an  assumption  that  a  similar  confu- 
sion occurs  in  the  Hebrew;  while  it 


158         Jacob's   New  Name 

is  self-evident  that  even  the  cruel 
imagination  of  the  most  depraved 
of  mankind  could  hardly  conceive 
the  absurd  idea  of  employing  the 
smooth-edged  stone-saw  for  the 
purpose  of  cutting  up,  or  mangling, 
living  human  beings. 

Although  the  noun  MeGeRaH  is 
in  the  singular  number,  our  transla- 
tors have  given  it  the  plural  render- 
ing "saws."  Some  little  excuse  for 
this  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
both  in  Hebrew  and  in  English  the 
singular  is  sometimes  used  in  an  ab- 
stract way,  as  a  general  expression 
covering  all  or  a  large  number  of 
things  of  the  kind  in  question ;  and 
that  the  Hebrews  carried  this  prac- 
tice much  farther  than  do  we.  Thus 
a  house  built  of  many  stones  is  de- 
scribed in  both  languages  as  built 
of  stone;  but  the  Hebrew  went  fur- 
ther, and  used  such  phrases  as :  "All 
the  people  shall  stone  him  with 
stone,"  and  "Every  one  could  sling 
stone  at  an  hair-breadth,  and  not 
miss."  One  more  example  will 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  159 

suffice:  Hosea  (iv,  13)  says  of  the 
people  of  Israel,  "They  burn  in- 
cense upon  the  hills,  under  [Ta- 
ChaTh,'  not  'Be']  oak  and  poplar 
and  terebinth."  This  is  sufficiently 
good  English;  of  a  poetic  rather 
than  a  prosaic  kind;  yet  our  trans- 
lators clearly  expressed  the  mean- 
ing by  using  the  plural  number 
when  describing  the  three  varieties 
of  trees. 

The  Hebrew  writers,  however, 
did  not  mix  the  singular  and  plural 
numbers  indiscriminately.  If,  in 
the  last-mentioned  passage,  the 
word  "oak"  was  in  the  singular 
number  in  the  original  text,  while 
"poplars"  and  "terebinths"  were 
mentioned  in  the  plural,  the  true 
meaning  would  not  be  expressed  by 
giving  the  word  "oak"  the  plural 
form.  Now  in  the  passage  under 
consideration  the  word  MeGeRaH, 
"stone-saw,"  is  singular,  while  the 
following  nouns,  translated  "har- 
rows" and  "axes"  are  plural.  It  is, 
therefore  evident  that  MeGeRaH 


160         Jacob's   New   Name 

should  not  be  given  a  plural  render- 
ing; but  should  be  translated  either 
"a  stone-saw,"  or  else  should  be 
given  our  best  approximation  to  an 
abstract  rendering  by  using  the 
phrase,  "the  stone-saw"  as  its  equiv- 
alent. 

This  brings  us  to  the  second 
word  in  which  there  is  a  difference 
of  one  letter  in  the  Hebrew  text  be- 
tween the  account  in  Second  Sam- 
uel and  that  in  First  Chronicles. 
The  latter  gives  as  the  third  article 
that  is  mentioned  MeGeRaH-s — in 
the  plural  number — precisely  the 
same  word  as  that  used — in  the  sin- 
gular number — to  describe  its  first 
mentioned  article. 

Where  MeGeRaH  occurs  in  the 
singular  number  all  our  translators 
concur  in  rendering  it  "saws;"  but, 
where  precisely  the  same  word  is 
found  in  the  plural  number,  the 
same  remarkable  unanimity  is  ex- 
hibited in  translating  it  "axes." 
Most  wonderful  transformation ! 
One  stone-saw  is  "saws ;"  but  plac- 


The  Work  of  the  Captives    161 

ing  another  stone-saw  beside  it 
causes  them  both  to  become  "axes" ! 
Turning  now  to  Second  Samuel, 
we  find  that  in  the  corresponding 
passage  it  has  the  word  MaGZe- 
RaH-s  instead  of  MeGeRaH-s.  The 
difference  in  the  first  vowel  is 
merely  a  matter  of  the  Rabbis' 
pointing:  excepting  this,  the  only 
difference  consists  in  the  insertion 
or  omission  of  the  letter  Z.  As 
already  explained,  the  two  passages 
must  have  read  alike  in  the  original 
text.  When  considering  the  ques- 
tion as  to  which  one  of  the  two  has 
correctly  preserved  that  text  for  us, 
we  can  hardly  resist  the  conclusion 
that  the  writer  would  not  be  likely 
to  mention  the  stone-saw  twice; 
first  in  the  singular  number  and 
then,  almost  immediately  afterward, 
in  the  plural.  The  assumption 
therefore  seems  reasonable  that  the 
text  of  Second  Samuel  is  correct, 
and  that  the  error  in  First  Chron- 
icles is  attributable  to  the  accident- 
al resemblance  of  the  two  words. 


1 62         Jacob's  New  Name 

Yet  we  are  not  by  any  means 
upon  firm  ground,  for  the  MaGZe- 
RaH  is  not  mentioned  elsewhere  in 
the  Bible,  and  there  is  no  tool  to 
which  the  speakers  of  any  Semitic 
language  now  give  any  similar 
name.  On  the  other  hand,  however, 
the  word  seems  regularly  derived 
from  the  root  GaZaR,  "to  cut  off," 
"to  cut  in  two,"  or  "to  cut  down," 
which  is  neither  "obsolete"  nor  un- 
certain in  meaning.  That  the  tool 
in  question  was  not  an  axe,  properly 
so  called,  seems  clear;  since  this  is 
mentioned  four  times  as  a  GaRZeN : 
from  First  Kings  vi,  7,  it  may  be 
inferred,  however,  that  this  last- 
mentioned  name  was  also  given  to 
some  tool  used  for  working  stone — 
possibly  a  pick-axe — and  this  infer- 
ence is  confirmed  by  the  ancient 
Hebrew  inscription  in  the  tunnel 
connecting  the  Fountain  of  the  Vir- 
gin, near  Jerusalem,  with  the  Pool 
of  Siloam.  This  reads,  in  part: 
"Now-  -this  is  the  Hstory  of  the 
excavation.  While  the  excavators 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  163 

were  still  lifting  up  the  GaRZeN, 
each  toward  his  neighbor,"  etc.,  etc. 

QaRDoM,  which  appears  in  four 
other  passages  with  the  English 
rendering  "ax,"  is  substantially  the 
same  word  as  the  Arabic  QaDDuM, 
a  "hatchet;"  and  the  inference  is 
therefore -reasonable  that  the  He- 
brew term  also  had  the  same  mean- 
ing. Three  other  Hebrew  words 
have  also  sometimes  been  rendered 
"ax;"  CheReB,  a  sword;  KaShiL, 
a  chisel;  and  MaGhaTzaD,  appar- 
ently a  general  term  for  a  tool  of 
almost  any  kind. 

All  that  can  properly  be  said  re- 
garding the  MaGZeRaH  is  that  it 
was  made  of  iron,  and  that  it  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  fool  for  cutting 
stone  "off"  or  cutting  it  "in  two;" 
in  the  absence  of  further  informa- 
tion, it  may  perhaps  be  considered  a 
species  of  cold-chisel. 

We  may  now  turn,  back  to  the 
second  articles  or  tools  that  are 
mentioned,  the  ChaRITz  [plural]  ; 
which  our  translators  have  called 


164        Jacob's  New  Name 

"harrows."  First  of  all  it  may  be 
said  that,  whatever  these  may  have 
been,  they  certainly  were  not  har- 
rows ;  for  there  is  no  reason  to  think 
that  the  Hebrews  ever  harrowed 
their  ploughed  ground  before  sow- 
ing it;  after  the  seed  was  sown  up- 
on the  surface  they  used  some  form 
of  light  harrow  to  cover  it  with 
earth,  usually  merely  a  thorn-bush 
or  the  branch  of  a  tree.  Their 
threshing-sledge,  however,  was  a 
heavy  wooden  drag,  weighted  with 
large  stones,  or  ridden  upon  by  the 
driver;  its  underside  was  frequently 
provided  with  projecting  teeth, 
which,  in  the  earlier  days,  consisted 
of  broken  pieces  of  pottery  or  small 
blocks  of  basalt,  about  the  size  of  a 
walnut,  securely  fastened  in  holes 
in  the  bottom  of  the  drag,  and  pro- 
truding beneath  it  for  a  small  dis- 
tance. This  was  called  a  ChaRUTz; 
but,  although  this  is  much  like 
ChaRITz,  and  seems  to  be  derived 
from  the  same  root,  the  two  words 
are  not  really  identical,  and  it  is  not 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  165 

safe  to  assume  that  the  articles  to 
which  these  two  different  names 
were  given  were  really  the  same 
thing. 

Job  (xli,  30)  referring  to  the 
leviathan,  or  crocodile,  says : 

"  His  underparts  are  sharp  pot- 
sherds : 

He  spreads  a  threshing-sledge 
upon  the  mire." 

Isaiah  xli,  15:  "Behold,  I  will 
make  thee  a  new  threshing-sledge ; 
a  MORaG  having  teeth :  thou  shalt 
thresh  the  mountains,  and  beat 
them  small,  and  shalt  make  the  hills 
as  chaff." 

MORaG  was  therefore  the  name 
of  some  form  of  threshing-sledge ; 
and  this  was  the  term  applied  to  the 
implements  used  by  Araunah  (or 
Oman)  the  Jebusite,  upon  hi& 
threshing  floor  on  the  summit  of 
Mount  Moriah,  the  site  of  the  future 
temple.  In  later  times  this  appella- 
tion seems  to  have  supplanted 
ChaRUTz ;  for  the  Chaldaic  targum 
employs  MURGI  to  translate  the 


1 66         Jacob's  New  Name 

Hebrew  ChaRiTzI.  The  words  of 
Amos  (i,3)  :  "They  have  threshed 
Gilead  with  ChaRuTzOTh  (thresh- 
ing-sledges) of  iron,"  show  that  in 
his  days  metallic  teeth  had  in  some 
cases  been  substituted  for  the  pieces 
of  pottery  or  basalt  formerly  em- 
ployed. In  the  days  of  Saul,  how- 
ever, "there  was  no  smith  found 
throughout  all  the  land  of  Israel/' 
and  the  people  were  compelled  to 
go  down  to  the  Philistines  when 
their  tools  needed  more  thorough 
sharpening  than  could  be  given 
them  with  a  file.  It  therefore  does 
not  seem  probable  that  only  a  few 
years  later  iron  had  become  so  com- 
mon as  to  replace  basalt  and  pottery 
for  the  teeth  of  threshing-sledges. 

All  things  considered,  there  is 
but  slight  ground  for  thinking  that 
the  ChaRITz,  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  stone-dressing  tools,  was 
identical  with  the  ChaRUTz  or 
threshing-sledge;  and  the  improb- 
ability is  increased  by  the  fact  that, 
in  the' only  other  Biblical  passage  in 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  167 

which  the  term  occurs,  it  seems  to 
denote  a  cheese.  First  Samuel  xvii, 
18:  "These  ten  ChaRiTzI  of  milk 
thou  shalt  carry  unto  the  SaR  of 
their  thousand." 

Whatever  may  be  the  real  mean- 
ing of  the  word,  it  appears  reason- 
ably certain  that  it  is  the  term 
which  the  Syriac  and  Arabic  trans- 
lators understood  to  mean  "chains;" 
for  it  seems  closely  akin  to  Cha- 
RUZ,  to  which  our  King  James' 
translators  gave  that  rendering  in 
Canticles  i,  10;  the  only  passage  in 
which  the  word  occurs: 

"Thy  cheeks  are  comely  with 
rows  of  jewels;  thy  neck  with 
chains  [of  gold]."  For  this  the  re- 
visers substitute: 

"Thy  cheeks  are  comely  with 
plaits  [of  hair]  ; 

Thy  neck  with  strings  of  jewels." 

The  correct  rendering  of  the 
whole  passage  is : 

"To  my  mare  of  the  chariots  of 
Pharaoh 

Have  I  likened  thee,  my  mate. 


i68         Jacob's   New   Name 

Adorned  are  thy  cheeks  with 
braids ; 

Thy  neck  with  ChaRUZ-IM. 

Braids  of  gold  will  we  make  for 
thee 

With  spangles  of  silver." 

The  ChaRUZ-IM  here  mentioned 
(in  the  plural  number)  seem  clearly 
to  have  been  some  kind  of  orna- 
mental attachments  for  the  collars 
worn  by  chariot-horses:  just  as  the 
bride's  braided  hair,  hanging  down 
her  cheeks,  resembled  the  locks 
plaited  from  the  mane  of  these  pam- 
pered steeds,  so  did  the  ornaments 
about  her  neck  look  like  those  at- 
tached to  the  collars  of  the  horses. 
Chains  they  may  have  been;  but 
"strings  of  jewels"  the  chariot 
steeds  certainly  did  not  wear.  This, 
however,  does  not  enable  us  to  de- 
termine the  true  nature  of  the 
ChaRiTzI  of  iron  mentioned  in  the 
passages  that  we  have  been  consid- 
ering. 

Gesenius  states  that  the  word  is 
derived  from  a  root  occuring  also  in 


The  Work  of  the  Captives  169 

Arabic  and  Syriac  and  meaning  "to 
puncture,"  "to  bore"— by  means  of 
a  sharp-pointed  tool.  Notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  a  sharp 
edge  and  a  sharp  point,  he  goes  on 
to  explain  that  the  ChaRITz  of  milk 
was  so  called  because  a  flat  cheese 
has  the  appearance  of  a  slice.  Al- 
though unable  to  accept  this  last 
explanation,  we  may,  in  the  absence 
of  more  satisfactory  information, 
define  the  ChaRITz  of  iron  as  a 
pointed  tool;  and  thus  reach  the 
following  statement,  as  the  best 
practicable  translation  of  the  first 
part  of  the  account  in  regard  to  the 
action  of  David  after  the  capture  of 
Rabbah : 

"And  the  populace  which  was 
therein  he  brought  forth,  and  set  in 
order  with  the  stone-saw,  and  with 
pointed  tools  of  iron  and  with  cold 
chisels  of  iron." 

We  can  not  be  certain  as  to  the 
exact  nature  of  the  tools  which  the 
captives  were  detailed  to  use;  but 


170         Jacob's  New  Name 

we  may  be  sure  that  the  meaning  of 
the  original  statement  was  not  that 
David  cut  his  prisoners  with  saws, 
or  put  them  under  harrows  of  iron, 
or  sawed  them  with  axes;  but  that 
he  set  them  to  work  with  various 
tools,  some  (and  probably  all)  of 
which  were  used  for  dressing  stone. 


CHAPTER  X. 


Justice  to  David 


A  clue  to  the  nature  of  the  woik 
to  which  David  assigned  the  Am- 
monites whom  he  had  captured  at 
Rabbah  may,  perhaps,  be  found  in 
the  statement,  that  the  temple  "was 
built  of  stone  made  ready  at  the 
quarry,"  and  in  the  further  informa- 
tion, that  at  least  a  large  part  of  this 
preparation  was  performed  under 
the  supervision  of  David: 

I  Chron.  xxii,  14-15:  "I  have  pre- 
pared for  the  house  of  the  Lord  .  .  . 
timber  .  .  and  stone  .  .  and  thou 
mayest  add  thereto.  Moreover 
there  are  workmen  with  thee  in 
abundance,  hewers  and  workers  of 
stone  and  timber." 


172         Jacob's   New   Name 

Where  did  these  workmen  "in 
abundance"  come  from? 

Is  it  not  probable  that  they  were 
David's  captives? 

We  are  told  in  Deuteronomy 
xxix,  2,  that  even  in  the  wilderness 
the  Israelites  had  strangers  in  their 
camp;  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water.  In  Joshua  ix,  27,  we  are 
given  the  additional  information, 
that  the  inhabitants  of  Gilead,  who 
by  deceit  had  induced  the  children 
of  Israel  to  enter  into  a  covenant 
with  them,  were  made  "hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the 
congregation,  and  for  the  altar  of 
the  Lord,"  and  that  this  state  of 
affairs  still  continued  at  the  time 
that  the  book  was  written. 

The  presence  among  the  Israel- 
ites of  bondmen,  who  performed 
their  rough  and  heavy  manual  la- 
bor, had  a  profound  influence  upon 
the  national  character.  In  a  slave- 
holding  community  no  freeman  is 
ever  willing  to  do  such  work  as  is 
usually  the  task  of  bondmen;  and 


Justice  to  David  173 

thus  the  Jewish  people  were  edu- 
cated to  work  as  little  as  possible 
with  their  hands.  Even  down  to 
this  day,  the  heaviest  tools  that 
their  poorest  laborers  are  willing  to 
employ  are  usually  the  needle  and 
the  pen.  It  is  said  in  Palestine,  that 
even  the  members  of  Jewish  agri- 
cultural colonies  are  rarely  willing 
to  do  such  heavy  work  as  plough- 
ing; but  that,  notwithstanding  their 
poverty,  they  are  usually  able  to 
save  money  enough  to  hire  some 
native  Palestinian  to  do  that  work 
for  them. 

Very  few  Jews  can  be  found  cut- 
ting stone  (other  than  precious 
stones)  to-day;  and  the  probability 
is  strong,  that  in  the  days  of  David 
the  Israelites  had  the  same  unwill- 
ingness to  engage  in  heavy  manual 
labor  that  they  now  have.  There  is, 
therefore,  good  reason  to  think,  that 
the  material  for  the  temple  was,  to 
a  large  extent  at  least,  prepared  by 
the  captives  whom  David  had  taken. 

One    additional    passage    still    re- 


1/4         Jacob's   New  Name 

mains  for  examination;  the  one 
which  terminates  the  account  in 
Second  Samuel,  which  was  not  re- 
peated in  First  Chronicles :  "He 
made  them  pass  along  in  [or  into,  or 
with]  MaLKeN."  With  a  slight 
change  in  the  Rabbinical  pointing, 
this  might  be  translated :  "He  made 
them  pass  along  with  their  women's 
King;"  but  it  seems  so  clear  that 
this  is  not  what  the  writer  meant — 
and  therefore,  that  it  is  not  what  he 
wrote — that  the  Hebrew  scholars 
have  ventured  to  change  the  state- 
ment; not  by  altering  the  wording 
of  the  text,  which  has  come  down  to 
them  from  their  earliest  manu- 
scripts, but  by  appending  a  note : 
"For  MaLKeN  read  MaLBeN."  It 
happens  that  the  characters  for  K 
and  B  are  very  much  alike  in  the 
Chaldaic  alphabet,  which  has  been 
used  for  writing  Hebrew  since  the 
Jews  returned  from  Babylon  to  Jeru- 
salem, and  taking  it  for  granted  that 
a  mistake  of  some  kind  has  been 
made  in  copying  the  original  text, 


Justice  to  David  175 

none  at  first  sight  seems  more  prob- 
able than  this.  All  our  translators, 
as  well  as  those  who  prepared  the 
Chaldaic,  Greek  and  Latin  versions, 
and  the  various  translations  into  the 
modern  languages  of  Europe,  have, 
therefore,  been  governed  accord- 
ingly. 

But  still  the  question  remains  as 
to  what  MaLBeN  means.  It  is  evi- 
dently a  noun  derived  from  the  verb 
LaBeN  "to  make  brick;"  for  the 
Semitic  languages  form  nouns  very 
freely  by  prefixing  M  with  a  suit- 
able vowel  to  their  various  verbs. 
In  round  numbers  Hebrew  has  some 
three  hundred  and  seventy-five 
nouns  of  this  kind,  of  which  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  express  the  ab- 
stract conception  of  the  action  in- 
dicated by  the  verb;  some  seventy- 
five  are  the  names  of  places  in  some 
way  connected  with  the  action ; 
about  seventy-five  more  are  the 
names  of  tools,  implements,  musical 
instruments,  and  articles  of  furni- 
ture or  apparel;  while  the  remain- 


176         Jacob's   New   Name 

ing  seventy-five  are  nouns  furnish- 
ing either  the  subject  of  the  verb  or 
the  object  upon  which  its  action  is 
expended.  So  far  as  the  general 
structure  of  the  Hebrew  language  is 
concerned  MaLBeN  may  therefore 
mean  either  the  process  of  making 
brick,  the  place  of  brick,  or  some 
tool,  implement  or  other  contrivance 
used  for  making  brick. 

In  order  to  bring  the  statement 
into  general  accord  with  the  ferocity 
attributed  to  David  in  their  rendi- 
tions of  the  preceding  account,  the 
men  who  translated  this  passage  in- 
to non-Semitic  languages  havo  al- 
most universally  rendered  the  word 
"brickkiln." 

Positive  proof  of  their  error  is 
found  in  the  fact,  that  we  have  every 
reason  to  think  that  the  Hebrews 
never  had  brickkilns.  Scarcely  any- 
thing is  more  indestructible  than  a 
burned  brick ;  yet  in  all  Palestine  no 
article  of  this  kind  has  ever  been 
found,  which  could  reasonably  be 
attributed  to  an  age  earlier  than  that 


Justice  to  David  177 

of  the  Roman  conquest  of  that  coun- 
try. In  fact,  the  noun  LeBeNaH  is 
strictly  applicable  only  to  sun-dried 
tile  or  brick.  The  root  LaBaN 
means  "to  be  white."  The  moon, 
because  of  the  whiteness  of  its 
light,  was  called  LeBaNaH,  and 
mount  LeBaNON  was  so  named 
from  the  snow  sometimes  to  be  seen 
upon  its  summit.  Burned  bricks  are 
not  white;  and  if  it  should  be  ob- 
jected that  sun-dried  bricks  are  not 
of  that  color  either,  we  must  remem- 
ber that,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
walls  constructed  of  them  from  be- 
ing washed  away  by  the  rains,  it 
was,  and  still  is,  the  custom  to  give 
them  a  coating  of  plaster,  of  which 
the  whiteness  is  frequently  restored 
and  enhanced  by  whitewashing. 
Burned  bricks  need  no  protection  of 
this  kind,  and  therefore  are  given 
none. 

The  only  mention  of  burning 
brick  that  occurs  in  the  Bible  is  to 
be  found  in  the  account  of  the  build- 
ing of  the  tower  of  Babel :  'They 


178        Jacob's  New  Name 

said,  a  man  to  his  companion,  'Come ! 
Let  us  make  LeBaN-IM  [sun-dried 
bricks]  and  burn  them  to  a  burning.' 
And  the  sun-dried  bricks  were  TO 
them  for  stones,  and  bitumen  was 
to  them  for  mortar."  Here  it  is 
clear,  that  the  use  of  bitumen  for 
mortar  was  so  strange  to  the  He- 
brews that  it  seemed  to  them 
worthy  of  special  explanation;  and 
the  same  thing  is  true  in  regard  to 
the  use  of  burned  bricks,  for  which 
they  did  not  possess  as  much  as  a 
name;  so  that  the  writer  could  not 
even  mention  them,  otherwise  than 
by  describing  the  process  of  their 
manufacture. 

In  Syriac  to-day  the  word  LeB- 
NoTa,  and  in  Arabic  the  term  La- 
BiN  or  LiBiN,  means  "a  brick  or 
tile  dried  in  the  sun."  The  Assy- 
rians applied  their  word  LiBaN 
only  to  the  same  article ;  while  they 
called  burned  brick  AGURRI  or 
AGURI.  Either  as  indigenous  to 
most  Semitic  languages,  or  else  as  a 
term  borrowed  from  the  Assyrians, 


Justice  to  David  179 

practically  the  same  word  is  found 
in  the  Aramean  and  in  the  modern 
Arabic,  in  which  it  appears  as  ajur, 
ujur,  or  ajira.  No  trace  of  such  a 
word  is  found  in  Hebrew,  however; 
for  the  evident  reason  that  the  Jew- 
ish people  never  used  burned  biicks, 
and  therefore  neither  borrowed  nor 
coined  a  word  to  describe  them. 

The  Palestinian  mounds  show 
that  in  ancient  times  sun-dried  brick 
formed  the  principal  building  ma- 
terial for  private  houses ;  hewn  stone 
being  occasionally  employed  by  a 
few  of  the  most  wealthy  of  the 
people;  but  burned  bricks  have 
never  been  found. 

In  Egypt  also,  sun-dried  brick 
formed  the  material  of  nearly  all 
secular  buildings,  and,  in  the  earliest 
times,  even  of  the  royal  tombs  and 
pyramids.  Owing  to  the  small  pro- 
portion of  clay  found  in  the  alluvial 
deposits  of  the  river  Nile,  this  brick 
was  weak  and  liable  to  crumble; 
stubble  and  straw  were  therefore 
mixed  with  the  plastic  material,  as 


180        Jacob's  New  Name 

described  in  the  book  of  Exodus,  for 
the  purpose  of  binding  it  together 
and  thus  giving  it  additional 
strength :  a  custom  that  seems  never 
to  have  prevailed  outside  of  that 
land.  It  is  evident  that  such  brick 
were  not  intended  to  be  burned. 

The  modern  East  still  has  a  great 
liking  for  sunburned  clay  as  a  build- 
ing material.  The  Moors  carried  its 
use  to  Spain,  and  the  Spaniards  to 
America,  where  "adobe"  houses  and 
walls,  plastered  and  whitewashed, 
may  still  be  seen  in  the  districts  first 
settled  by  that  race. 

But  we  have  further  proof  that 
the  Hebrew  word  MaLBeN  does 
not  mean  a  brickkiln;  for  it  occurs 
in  two  other  Biblical  passages.  Na- 
hum  iii,  14:  "Water  for  a  siege  do 
thou  draw  for  thyself.  Strengthen 
the  fortifications.  Go  into  the  mire 
and  tread  the  clay.  Make  the 
MaLBeN  strong  [or,  grasp  the 
MaLBeN  firmly]."  In  Jeremiah  li, 
12,  we  find  the  expression  "Make  the 
watch  strong"  (the  same  verb  being 


Justice  to  David  181 

used  in  the  same  way  as  in  this  pas- 
sage of  Nahum's),  which  necessarily 
means  to  increase  the  number  of 
men  engaged  in  the  watch.  Nahum's 
exhortation  may  therefore  mean  to 
increase  the  force  at  work  in  the 
brickyard.  In  Gen.  xxi,  18,  Ps.  xxxv, 
2,  and  Prov.  iv,  13,  the  same  verb  is 
used,  however,  with  the  meaning, 
"Grasp  firmly;"  as  the  Arabic  word 
MaLBaN  means  a  trough  or  mould 
for  shaping  bricks  or  tiles,  its  He- 
brew equivalent  may  have  had  the 
same  meaning,  and  thus  the  transla- 
tion in  brackets  is  reached.  The 
Chaldaic,  Arabic  and  Syriac  ver- 
sions are  not  of  much  assistance ;  for 
the  former  reads,  "  Fortify  thy 
buildings;"  the  Arabic  says,  "Hold 
the  sun-dried  bricks,"  and  the  latter 
gives  the  exhortation,  "Strengthen 
the  MuLKNa  [the  promise,  or  the 
declaration].  The  Septuagint  and 
the  Vulgate  say,  "Lay  hold  upon 
the  brick."  The  only  conclusion 
that  can  be  reached  seems  to  be, 


1 82         Jacob's  New  Name 

that  Nahum  certainly  did  not  mean, 
"Fortify  the  brickkiln." 

Jeremiah  xliii,  9-10  is  more  help- 
ful: "Take  in  thy  hand  great 
stones,  and  thou  shalt  hide  them  in 
the  clay  in  the  MaLBeN,  which  is  :tt 
the  entrance  of  Pharaoh's  house  in 
Tahpanhes,  before  the  eyes  of  the 
men  of  Judah ;  and  thou  shalt  say 
unto  them,  'Thus  says  Jehovah  of 
Hosts,  the  God  of  Israel :  Behold  I 
will  commission  and  I  will  take 
Nebuchadrezzar,  the  king  of  Baby- 
lon, My  servant,  and  will  set  his 
throne  upon  these  stones  which  I 
have  hid;  and  he  shall  spread  his 
gorgeous  pavilion  over  them.' "  The 
Chaldaic  interpreters  evidently  read 
MeLT-BiNTH,  "plaster  of  the 
building,"  instead  of  MaLBeN,  for 
that  is  what  their  translation  says. 
The  Vulgate  reads :  "Hide  them  in 
the  vault  which  is  under  the  brick 
wall  at  the  entrance  of  Pharaoh's 
house,"  and  one  Arabic  version 
(which  probably  was  translated 
from  it  rather  than  from  the  He- 


Justice  to  David  183 

brew  text)  coincides;  while  another 
reads  :  "Hide  them  in.  front  of  the 
door  at  the  entrance  of  Pharaoh's 

house." 

The  Syriac  reads :  "Hide  them  in 
the  clay  in  the  MaLBeN  [brickyard 
or  brickmould — according  to  Wal- 
ton's Latin  translation,  the  officina 
lateritia,  'the  brick  workplace']  at 
the  entrance  of  Pharaoh's  house," 
and  the  Septuagint  says  :  "Hide  them 
in  the  prothurois  at  the  entrance  of 
Pharaoh's  house;"  the  prothuron 
being  the  vestibule  or  fore-court,  or 
the  inclosed  space  between  the  en- 
trance of  a  house  and  the  street 

The  Chaldaic  and  Latin  versions, 
with  the  Arabic  text  which  follows 
the  latter,  may  be  set  aside  as  un- 
questionably erroneous ;  but  the 
Greek,  the  Syriac  and  one  of  the 
Arabic  versions,  all  agree  that  the 
stones  were  to  be  placed  in  the  fore- 
court or  inclosed  space  in  front  of 
the  entrance,  a  place  in  which  it 
would  be  very  natural  for  Nebu- 
chadrezzar, upon  his  arrival,  to  set 


1 84         Jacob's   New   Name 

up  his  pavilion  and  establish  his 
throne.  It  certainly  can  not  be 
thought,  either  that  Pharaoh  would 
permit  a  brickkiln  to  be  built  just 
in  front  of  the  entrance  to  his  pal- 
ace, or  that  Nebuchadrezzar,  would 
pitch  his  pavilion  and  set  up  his 
throne  upon  a  brickkiln. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the 
Hebrew  word  MaLBeN  was  used 
with  the  meaning  "a  place  of  brick," 
and  that  it  might  be  applied  to  a 
yard  enclosed  by  brick  walls;  al- 
though this  does  not  exclude  the 
possibility  that  it  might  also  be  ap- 
plied to  a  brickyard,  or  even  to  a 
brickmould.  We  may  be  sure, 
however,  that  it  was  not  used  as  the 
name  of  a  brickkiln,  or  anything 
else  which  the  Hebrews  never  pos- 
sessed. If  the  Rabbis  were  correct 
in  their  conjecture,  that  their  manu- 
scripts are  all  wrong  in  their  text 
of  Second  Samuel  xii,  31,  and  that 
MaLBeN  should  be  substituted  for 
MaLKeN,  then  the  passage  would 
evidently  mean,  that  David  caused 


Justice  to  David  185 

some  of  his  captives  to  pass  into  a 
brickyard  and  go  to  work  making 
sim-dried  brick. 

It  is  not  at  all  certain,  however, 
that  they  guessed  correctly.  If  any 
change  is  to  be  made,  it  seems 
much  more  probable  than  M  should 
be  substituted  for  the  final  N.  Pos- 
sibly the  original  text  had  some 
reference  to  the  god  "MiLKoM  the 
abomination  of  the  Ammonites,"  or 
it  may  be  that  either  this  god,  or 
the  king  of  the  Ammonites,  as  the 
recognized  head  of  the  nation,  was 
given  the  official  title  MaLKoM,  as 
is  indicated  by  the  revisers'  transla- 
tion of  Jeremiah  xlix,  3 :  "Cry,  ye 
daughters  of  Rabbah ;  gird  you  with 
sackcloth :  lament,  and  run  to  and 
fro  among  the  fences;  for  Malcom 
[or,  their  king]  shall  go  into  cap- 
tivity, his  priest  and  his  princes  to- 
gether." 

It  seems  more  probable,  however, 
that  the  last  word  of  the  clause  that 
we  have  been  considering  should  be 
read  MaLKoM,  "their  king;"  so 


1 86         Jacob's  New  Name 

that  the  whole  clause  should  be 
translated:  "And  he  caused  them 
to  pass  along  [i.  e.,  to  migrate]  with 
their  king."  The  verb  GhaBaR  in 
its  causative  form,  as  here  used,  is 
translated  in  Genesis  xlvii,  21,  "to 
remove :"  "As  for  the  people,  he  re- 
moved them  to  the  cities."  It  was 
undoubtedly  in  recognition  of  this 
power  of  the  verb,  that  the  Syriac 
translators,  after  saying  that  he  did 
not  kill  a  man  of  them,  continued: 
"But  he  removed  them;"  and  then 
added  the  explanatory  note:  "And 
made  them  dwell  in  the  towns  of 
the  land  of  Israel." 

Additional  confirmation  of  the 
statement,  that  David  did  not  mas- 
sacre the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of 
Rabbah,  may  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  it  soon  afterward  regained  its 
former  importance;  its  people  cap- 
turing the  territory  of  Gad,  and 
exulting  over  the  downfall  of  God's 
chosen  race;  thus  bringing  upon 
themselves  the  denunciations  of 
Amos  [i,  13-15],  Zephaniah  [ii,  89], 


Justice  to  David  187 

Jeremiah  [xlix,  2-5]  a'nd  Ezekiel 
!xxi,  20,  28  and  xxv,  5], 

How  then,  it  may  be  asked,  did 
the  Jewish  translators  into  Greek 
and  Chaldaic  come  to  make  so 
serious  a  blunder?  Two  causes  evi- 
dently worked  together  to  produce 
this  result. 

First:  They  had  forgotten  the 
force  of  the  verb  SWuR,  and  had  no 
clue  to  its  true  meaning;  while  they 
had  also  forgotten  that  the  word 
for  a  saw,  occurring  in  Isaiah  x,  15, 
should  be  pronounced  MaShWoR 
and  not  MaSsWoR.  They  were  thus 
led  to  the  unhappy  conjecture,  that 
the  two  words  were  connected,  and 
hence  reasoned  that  the  verb  might 
mean  "to  saw;"  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  they  knew  that  it  did  not 
have  that  meaning  anywhere  else 
that  it  occurred. 

Second:  Their  nation,  once  so 
powerful  among  its  neighbors,  had 
been  brought  low;  yet  it  was  the 
delight  of  the  Israelites  to  remember 
their  former  glory  under  king 


1 88         Jacob's   New   Name 

David.  When  translating  their 
Sacred  Scriptures  for  the  Egyptian 
monarch,  they  took  every  oppor- 
tunity to  emphasize  and  magnify 
their  people's  earlier  importance; 
and  to  this  fact  may  be  attributed 
the  origin  of  a  number  of  serious 
errors  now  found  in  our  current 
translations  of  the  Old  Testament. 

It  was  the  practice  of  foreign  sov- 
ereigns; notably  of  the  kings  of 
Assyria;  to  glory  not  only  in  their 
conquests,  but  also  in  the  barbarity 
with  which  these  were  accompan- 
ied. Thus  Tiglath-pileser  boasted : 
"I  cut  off  their  heads,  and  piled 
them  up  outside  their  cities  like 
heaps  of  grain."  Ashur-nasir-pal 
recorded  the  following-  horrible 
cruelties  among  his  own  boastful  in- 
scriptions: "I  took  many  alive,  and 
the  rest  I  burned  with  fire.  I  set  a 
pile  of  heads  over  against  the  city 
gate,  and  I  impaled  seven  hundred 
men  on  stakes."  .  .  "Two  hundred 
men  I  captured  alive,  and  cut  off 
their  hands ;  I  flayed  the  governor, 


Justice  to  David  189 

and  spread  his  skin  upon  the  city 
wall."  .  .  "I  built  a  pillar  over 
against  the  city  gate,  and  I  flayed 
all  the  chief  men  who  had  revolted, 
and  I  covered  the  pillar  with  their 
skins;  some  I  walled  up  within  the 
pillar,  and  others  I  fixed  to  stakes 
round  about  the  pillar."  .  .  "From 
some  I  cut  off  their  hands  and  their 
fingers,  and  from  others  I  cut  off 
their  noses  and  their  ears,  and  the 
eyes  of  many  men  I  put  out."  .  . 
"Their  young  men  and  maidens  I 
burned  in  the  fire;"  and  so  on,  ad 
nauseam. 

It  remained  for  the  Jewish  trans- 
lators, however,  in  their  desire  to 
magnify  the  greatness  of  their  sov- 
ereign, to  invent  for  him  the  glory 
of  sawing  his  captives  with  axes, 
and  driving  threshing-sledgies 
around  over  them,  and  utilizing 
brickkilns  as  a  means  of  burning 
them  up.  In  this  flight  of  fancy 
they  excelled  the  most  barbarous 
devices  of  the  cruelest  of  heathen 
monarchs.  The  fiendish  chuckle  of 


190         Jacob's  New  Name 

the  Vulgate  is  almost  inimitable. 
Dissecarentur  et  contererentur,  it 
says:  "They  were  cut  up  and 
ground  up." 

Let  us  thank  God,  that  this  is 
but  a  hideous  dream  of  the  per- 
verted imagination  of  erring  men; 
and  that  the  statement  which  our 
Heavenly  Father  gave  to  mankind 
was,  in  substance : 

"And  the  populace  which  was 
therein  he  brought  forth  and  set  in 
order  with  the  stone-saw,  and  with 
pointed  tools  of  iron,  and  with  cold- 
chisels  of  iron;  and  he  caused  them 
to  migrate,  with  their  king." 

The  correction  of  our  translation 
of  this  passage,  as  heretofore  ac- 
cepted, is  due  to  the  honor  of  our 
God,  and  in  a  minor  degree  is  also 
an  act  of  justice  to  David. 


EPILOGUE 

The  fifth  verse  of  the  ninety-sec- 
ond psalm,  when  so  translated  as  to 
preserve  its  full  force,  reads: 
"How  perfect  are  Thy  works,  O 
Lord!  Deeply  covered  are  Thy 
purposes."  While  our  ears  ring  with 
the  noise  of  the  adherents  of  Ger- 
man infidelity,  shouting  in  shrill 
chorus  the  praises  of  their  own  sur- 
passing scholarship,  we  may  re- 
member that 

IT  IS  WRITTEN : 

"I  will  destroy  the  wisdom  of  the 
wise,  and  the  sagacity  of  the  sages 
will  I  set  aside.  Where  is  the  wise? 
Where  is  the  professor?  Where  is 
the  questioner  of  this  age?  Has 
not  God  made  foolish  the  wisdom 
of  the  world?  Because  the  foolish 
thing  of  God  is  wiser  than  men; 
and  the  strengthless  thing  of  God 
is  stronger  than  men." 


192          Jacob's  New  Name 

Within  the  last  score  of  years  the 
spade  has  uncovered  numerous 
buried  proofs  of  the  truthfulness  of 
God's  Word,  in  regard  to  matters 
as  to  which  it  had  been  impugned. 

An  attempt  has  been  made  here- 
in to  show  that  it  is  not  by  earth 
alone  that  such  proofs  have  been 
covered;  but  that  they  are  to  be 
found  beneath  the  surface  of  the 
wording  of  God's  message  to  man- 
kind. The  first  effort  of  a  feeble 
hand  exposes  them  crowded  thickly 
together  in  a  little  group  of  words 
springing  from  a  single  root — 
proofs  clear  and  positive  that  the 
fundamental  assumptions  of  mod- 
ern skepticism  are  wholly  false.  A 
vast  field  still  remains  unexplored, 
for  similar  researches  hereafter,  if 
any  think  that  further  demonstra- 
tion of  the  truth  of  the  Scriptures 
is  needed. 

FINIS 


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OCT    3    1933 

OCT    4    1933 

OCT           -m 

^      ;wo 

LD  21-100m-7,'33 

165923 


YC  38528 


